Tether announced the completion of the audit on August 13. KPMG U.S. audited the financial statements of Tether International, S.A. de C.V. for the year ended December 31, 2025 and issued an unqualified opinion.
In accounting terms, an unqualified opinion means that, in the auditor's view, the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the company's financial position, operating results and cash flows in accordance with the applicable accounting framework. Tether said its 2025 financial statements were prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).
The development marks a significant change from Tether's previous disclosure model. Until now, the company had primarily relied on quarterly reserve attestations, most recently prepared by BDO, which provide assurance over financial figures and the assets backing issued tokens at a specific reporting date. A full financial statement audit examines a considerably broader set of information and covers the company's financial statements for an entire reporting period.
According to Tether, KPMG's work included testing transactions, internal systems, asset ownership records, valuations, counterparties and supporting documentation. The audit covered the full balance sheet, including assets held in reserve and liabilities associated with issued tokens, as well as the income statement, statement of changes in equity and cash-flow statement.
The company's substantial physical gold holdings were also subjected to direct verification. Tether said KPMG physically counted and inspected every individual gold bar held by the company, checking the existence and identifying information of each bar instead of relying solely on statements provided by custodians or other counterparties. This part of the audit is particularly relevant because gold has become an increasingly significant component of Tether's wider balance sheet. The company has continued adding physical bullion while also expanding its Tether Gold (XAU₮) tokenized-gold business.
The clean audit opinion fulfils a commitment Tether made earlier in 2026. In March, the company announced that it had formally hired a Big Four accounting firm to conduct its first full independent financial statement audit after years of criticism over the absence of such a review.
CEO Paolo Ardoino described the completion of the process as an important milestone for both Tether and the stablecoin industry. He argued that the audit addresses long-running claims that a comprehensive examination of the company either could not be completed or that Tether was unwilling to subject itself to that level of scrutiny. Chief Financial Officer Simon McWilliams similarly described the audit as a major step in Tether's transparency efforts. According to the company, the audited 2025 financial statements show that reserves exceeded related liabilities by approximately $6.814 billion at the end of the year.
The audit also provides a stronger framework for assessing the scale Tether reached during 2025. In its earlier year-end reserve report, the company said it generated more than $10 billion in net profit during the year.
At December 31, 2025, Tether reported total assets of more than $192.8 billion and liabilities of approximately $186.5 billion, with roughly $186.45 billion of those liabilities related to issued digital tokens. USD₮ circulation had surpassed $186 billion by year-end.
Tether's financial position is also important in the context of growing competition among major stablecoin issuers. Circle continues to expand USDC and its institutional infrastructure, a trend examined in FORECK.INFO's analysis of Circle's Arc network and stablecoin strategy.
Tether also reported direct holdings of more than $122 billion in U.S. Treasury securities, while total direct and indirect Treasury exposure exceeded $141 billion when overnight reverse-repurchase agreements were included. The company has increasingly relied on short-duration U.S. government debt and other liquid instruments to generate income from the reserves backing USD₮.
Ardoino also pointed to the growing scale of Tether's user base, saying that more than 650 million users now rely on the company's products globally. The figure is a company estimate rather than an independently audited measure of unique active users, but it illustrates the scale Tether says its stablecoin infrastructure has reached, particularly in emerging markets. One important transparency issue nevertheless remains. At the time of writing, Tether's public announcement describes KPMG's audit and its unqualified opinion but does not provide a public link to the signed independent auditor's report or the complete audited financial statements and accompanying notes. A corresponding public release of those documents could not be located on KPMG's website either.
This distinction does not negate the audit announced by Tether, but access to the underlying audited statements and auditor's report would allow investors and analysts to examine the scope, accounting policies, notes and any other disclosures directly rather than relying primarily on the company's summary of the results.
The company's financial position has also changed since the audited year-end date. According to Tether's Q2 2026 attestation, reserves exceeded liabilities by approximately $4.11 billion as of June 30, down from the $6.814 billion excess reported in the audited year-end financial statements. The decline should not be described as the reserve buffer being cut in half. The reduction was closer to 40%, while Tether continued to report reserves above token-related liabilities. The company generated approximately $1.5 billion in net operating profit during the second quarter, driven primarily by its U.S. Treasury and repo portfolio.
The quarter also coincided with substantial volatility across several assets held by Tether. Gold prices fell sharply during the period, while Bitcoin and the broader digital-asset market were also under pressure. Despite those movements, Tether reported total assets of approximately $187.75 billion against liabilities of $183.64 billion at the end of June.
The contrast between the 2025 audit and the more volatile conditions seen in 2026 will now make subsequent financial reporting particularly important. Tether has moved from periodic reserve attestations to completing its first full financial statement audit, raising the disclosure standard against which future reports from the world's largest stablecoin issuer will be assessed.
