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Why Doesn't My Police Department Report Crime to the FBI?
Reporting crime to the FBI is voluntary, and since 2021 only possible through NIBRS. The three ways an agency falls short, with two states' counts for 2025.
The short answer
Reporting crime to the FBI is voluntary. No federal law requires a police department to send its figures, and in any year some agencies send all twelve monthly reports, some send a few, and some send none. Since 2021 the FBI accepts reports only through its newer reporting system, called NIBRS, and an agency that has not switched to it cannot report at all. The FBI's data records what each agency sent. It does not record why.
What “reporting” means
The FBI collects one report per agency per month: the offenses that agency recorded in that month, by type. A year is complete when the FBI holds all twelve. CrimeTally counts a month only when both the violent crime and the property crime figures are on file for it, and shows a reported crime rate only for a complete year. A reported crime rate is that year's count divided by the population the agency serves, times 100,000.
The three ways an agency can fall short
- Part of the year. The agency sent between one and eleven months. Its page shows the count for those months and no rate. CrimeTally never stretches a partial year into a yearly figure.
- Nothing. The FBI holds no report from the agency for the year. Its page says so.
- Not on NIBRS. The agency has not switched to the FBI's newer system. NIBRS was the only system the FBI accepted for 2021; since then it has taken the older summary counts as well, so an agency on this list may still have reported every month. The list overlaps the other three.
A worked example: two states in 2025
The FBI lists 87 agencies for Vermont and 834 for Florida. Here is what each state's agencies sent for 2025. These are counts of agencies, not of people or of crimes.
| State | Agencies listed | All 12 months | Part of the year | Nothing | Not on NIBRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vermont | 87 | 82 (94%) | 5 (6%) | 0 (0%) | 0 |
| Florida | 834 | 438 (53%) | 51 (6%) | 345 (41%) | 535 |
In Vermont, 82 of 87 agencies sent all twelve months, so the state's figures rest almost entirely on reports. In Florida, 345 of 834 agencies sent nothing, so a larger part of the FBI's figure for Florida is its estimate, made by a method it publishes with each annual release. Neither row says anything about how much crime either state has. A state where many small agencies report nothing can still have most of its residents covered by the large agencies that do.
Why 2021 is the year to check
Through 2020 the FBI took reports in two systems: an older one that counted only the most serious offense in an incident, and NIBRS, which counts every offense. On 1 January 2021 it retired the older one. Thousands of agencies, including some of the largest, had not switched, so for 2021 the FBI holds little or nothing from them, and their trend lines break. An agency's page on CrimeTally shows the year it started on NIBRS, and shows no rate for 2021 unless it was on NIBRS by that January.
What a reporting gap leaves out
- The reason. The FBI's data says what arrived, not why the rest did not. Agencies change records systems, lose staff, or join the program late; the data does not say which.
- Crime. An agency that reported nothing is not an agency with no crime. It is an agency with no data.
- People. A share of agencies is not a share of residents. The FBI publishes the population each agency serves, and the agency pages show it.
What this guide does not cover
It does not cover the FBI's estimation method, which it publishes in the methodology with each annual release, and it does not compare states by their coverage: the FBI discourages ranking places with its data, and a reporting share is a fact about a state's data, not about the state. It cannot say whether any agency will report next year.
See your state's agencies
Reporting Coverage by State lists every agency in a state by what it sent the FBI for 2025: all twelve months, part of the year, or nothing, with the agencies not on NIBRS listed last.
Sources
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 Crime Data Explorer's agency list and monthly reports, September 2026.