Tether KPMG Audit: USDT Issuer Gets First Clean Opinion

Tether, the company behind the USDT stablecoin, said on August 13, 2026 that KPMG U.S. had issued an unqualified, or "clean", audit opinion on its 2025 financial statements, the first full audit by a Big Four firm in the company's history (The Block).

The Tether KPMG audit matters because Tether issues the largest stablecoin in the market and promised a full audit as far back as 2017. For years it relied on quarterly reserve attestations, which check reserves on a single date. A full audit tests a whole year of accounts.

Key facts from the Tether KPMG audit

• Auditor: KPMG U.S., which confirmed the opinion to The Block and declined further comment, citing client confidentiality.
• Audited entity: Tether International, S.A. de C.V., the El Salvador-registered company that issues USDT.
• Period: the year ended December 31, 2025.
• Opinion: unqualified (clean), under AICPA standards and U.S. GAAP, according to Forkast.
• Reserve surplus: reserves exceeded liabilities by $6.814 billion at year end, according to CFO Simon McWilliams.
• Gold: KPMG physically counted the gold bars and checked serial numbers across more than 146 metric tons, BitPinas reported.
• Profit: Tether reported more than $10 billion in net profit for 2025, according to Cointelegraph.

An unqualified opinion means the auditor found the statements fairly presented in all material respects. As Decrypt pointed out, it does not mean KPMG endorses Tether's business or guarantees its obligations. Tether itself called the review "the largest inaugural financial audit in history."

What did KPMG check?

Tether said the audit covered its complete financial statements: the balance sheet, income statement, changes in equity and cash flows. The company said KPMG examined assets, liabilities, internal systems, records, counterparties and valuations, and that "each area was subject to independent substantive testing and verification" (The Block).

Gold got special attention. Tether said KPMG inspected every bar itself rather than relying on custodian reports. CEO Paolo Ardoino said KPMG "did not simply review a set of headline figures," and wrote that some detractors had claimed for years that an audit of Tether could not be completed.

What Tether has not published

The audit is clean, but the documents behind it are not public. According to The Defiant, Tether has released neither the financial statements nor KPMG's opinion letter. That means the $6.814 billion figure and the gold count come from Tether's own summary, confirmed in outline by KPMG's spokesperson.

The scope is also narrower than the whole group. BitPinas reported that the audit does not cover Tether Holdings, the parent company, or its venture capital, bitcoin mining and technology investments.

How the audit fits Tether's history

• 2017: Tether hired Friedman LLP to audit it. No audit was completed.
• February 2021: Tether paid $18.5 million to settle with the New York Attorney General over its reserve claims.
• October 2021: the CFTC fined Tether $41 million over statements that USDT was fully backed by U.S. dollars.
• March 2026: Tether said it had hired a Big Four auditor. The Financial Times later reported it was KPMG, with PwC helping prepare internal systems.

Those dates come from Decrypt and The Block.

What the numbers say since the audit date

The audit is a December 2025 snapshot of a fast-moving balance sheet. Later BDO Italia attestations put Tether's excess reserves at $8.23 billion in the first quarter of 2026 and $4.11 billion in the second quarter, a drop of about half in one quarter, Forkast reported. Forkast also noted that Tether's gold and bitcoin holdings fall outside the reserve assets allowed under the U.S. GENIUS Act, so core USDT remains outside that framework. For background on the U.S. stablecoin rules, see our guide to crypto regulation in 2026 and our report on the CLARITY Act Senate vote.

For scale: USDT had a market value of about $183 billion, roughly 61% of the stablecoin market, according to DefiLlama figures cited by Cointelegraph. Stablecoins as a whole serve more than 650 million users, BitPinas reported.

What comes next

Ardoino called the audit "the beginning of the next one," suggesting KPMG audits will continue each year. The open questions for USDT holders are whether Tether publishes the full statements and how the excess reserve buffer holds up. If you hold USDT, it is worth knowing how stablecoins sit in your wallet: our crypto wallets guide covers the basics.

Featured photo: KPMG office in Darwin, Australia, by Dietmar Rabich, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Frequently asked questions

Did KPMG audit Tether?

Yes. KPMG U.S. issued an unqualified (clean) opinion on the 2025 financial statements of Tether International, S.A. de C.V., the company that issues USDT. Tether announced it on August 13, 2026, and a KPMG spokesperson confirmed the opinion to The Block.

How much excess reserve did the Tether audit show?

According to Tether CFO Simon McWilliams, reserves exceeded liabilities by $6.814 billion as of December 31, 2025. That figure comes from Tether's statement, because the audited financial statements themselves have not been published.

Is the KPMG audit the same as Tether's quarterly attestations?

No. The quarterly reports from BDO Italia are attestations, a snapshot of reserves on one date. The KPMG audit covered the full year's financial statements, including the balance sheet, income statement and cash flows.

Does the audit cover all of Tether's businesses?

No. The audit covers Tether International, the USDT issuer. BitPinas reported that it does not cover the parent company, Tether Holdings, or its venture, bitcoin mining and technology investment arms.