What Is the Crime Rate in the United States?

The short answer

For 2025, the FBI estimates a reported violent crime rate of 327.6 per 100,000 people in the United States and a reported property crime rate of 1,534.8. Both are estimates of crimes reported to police, not counts of all crime, and the rest of this guide is what those two sentences leave out.

The math

A crime rate per 100,000 is a count of crimes divided by a population, times 100,000. The FBI's 2025 figures for the whole country:

1,119,768 ÷ 341,784,857 × 100,000 = 327.6, and 5,245,768 ÷ 341,784,857 × 100,000 = 1,534.8. Violent crime is murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Property crime is burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft. Arson is in neither.

Why it is an estimate

The FBI does not count crime. Police agencies count the crimes reported to them and send the totals to the FBI, and not every agency sends a full year, or anything at all. For a national figure the FBI fills those gaps by its own published method, so the number is the FBI's estimate of what would have been reported had every agency reported. The share of agencies that did report changes from year to year, and the US Crime Rate by Year tool shows it beside every year, so you can see how much of a figure rests on reports and how much on the method.

Three breaks in the series

2013: the definition of rape changed

From 2013 the FBI counts rape under a broader definition. The count went up for that reason alone, and violent crime totals with it, so a violent rate from before 2013 and one from after are not measuring the same thing. The tool labels which definition each year uses.

2021: the switch to NIBRS

In 2021 the FBI accepted reports only through its newer reporting system, called NIBRS, and thousands of agencies had not switched. The share of agencies reporting fell, and the 2021 estimate rests more on the FBI's method than other years do.

2001

The FBI's note on its 2001 row says the murders that occurred as a result of the events of September 11, 2001 are not included. The tool carries the note beside the year.

What the national rate leaves out

• Unreported crime. The rate counts crimes reported to police. Crimes that nobody reported are in no one's count.
• Where crime happens. A national rate is an average across places that differ in almost every way. It says nothing about any state, city, street or home.
• Why the number moved. Reporting practices, definitions and the population figure all change over the years, along with crime itself, and the data does not separate them.

Comparing a city with the national rate

You can put a police agency's rate next to the national one, and the Crime Rate Lookup gives the agency figure from the same FBI data. Read it as two numbers, not a verdict: a city above or below the national rate is ordinary, and the FBI's own guidance says its statistics should not be used to rank places.

What this guide does not cover

It does not say whether crime in the United States is going up or down, which depends on the two years chosen and on the breaks above. It does not cover arrests, victim surveys or any figure the FBI does not publish in its estimated crimes file. It gives no advice on where to live.

Every year since 1979

The US Crime Rate by Year tool has the FBI's estimate for every year from 1979 to 2025, with the counts, the population, the share of agencies reporting and the FBI's notes.

This guide is for informational purposes only and is not professional advice. A reported crime rate describes what one police agency reported to the FBI. It says nothing certain about any one home, street or school.

Last reviewed: September 2026 · Against the FBI's estimated crimes file (Crime Data Explorer downloads, 2026-09-30) and the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics: Their Proper Use (May 2017).