Washington has the highest property crime rate in America at 3,210 incidents per 100,000 residents — almost 4x safer states like New Hampshire. We rank all 50 states using FBI UCR and BJS data, with deep links to the StatsPanda Comparison Tool.
Which States Have the Highest Property Crime Rates?
According to FBI Uniform Crime Reporting and Bureau of Justice Statistics data for 2026, the U.S. national property crime rate stands at 1,940 incidents per 100,000 residents — down 4.2% from a year ago and roughly 30% below the 2015 baseline. But the national average masks an enormous spread. Washington, the highest-rate state, posts 3,210 incidents per 100K — nearly 4x the rate of New Hampshire, the safest state, at 855 per 100K.
"Property crime" is the FBI category that aggregates burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. It excludes violent offenses (homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault), which follow a different geographic pattern. The states near the top of the list tend to share three factors: large urban populations, significant transient or unhoused populations, and relatively short sentencing exposure for low-value property offenses.
Full 50-State Property Crime Ranking (Top 15 + Bottom 5)
| Rank | State | Rate / 100K | YoY Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Washington | 3,210 | −2.1% |
| 2 | New Mexico | 3,050 | −1.5% |
| 3 | Louisiana | 2,940 | −3.2% |
| 4 | Colorado | 2,820 | −5.4% |
| 5 | Oregon | 2,790 | −4.0% |
| 6 | California | 2,720 | −6.1% |
| 7 | Oklahoma | 2,690 | −2.8% |
| 8 | Arkansas | 2,580 | −1.0% |
| 9 | Arizona | 2,540 | −4.7% |
| 10 | Missouri | 2,490 | −3.6% |
| 11 | Nevada | 2,420 | −2.5% |
| 12 | Texas | 2,380 | −4.4% |
| 13 | Hawaii | 2,310 | −5.0% |
| 14 | South Carolina | 2,290 | −3.8% |
| 15 | Tennessee | 2,210 | −2.9% |
| 46 | Wisconsin | 1,290 | −5.5% |
| 47 | New York | 1,210 | −6.9% |
| 48 | Idaho | 1,140 | −4.8% |
| 49 | Maine | 910 | −7.2% |
| 50 | New Hampshire | 855 | −5.1% |
A resident of Washington State is 3.75x more likely to be a victim of property crime than someone in New Hampshire. Almost every state showed a year-over-year decline in 2026, continuing the post-2022 downtrend.
Top 5 vs Bottom 5 — Side-by-Side Comparison
The gap between the riskiest and safest states is wide enough that they look like different countries on the metric. The chart below puts the top 5 states next to the bottom 5 on the same axis:
How Property Crime Has Trended Nationally
The long arc of U.S. property crime has been one of the most dramatic public-policy success stories of the past 35 years — rates have fallen by roughly 60% since 1991. The pandemic interrupted that trend (vehicle theft in particular spiked sharply in 2020–22), but by 2024 the downtrend had resumed and 2026 marks the third consecutive year of decline.
Among the three subcategories that make up property crime, motor vehicle theft remains the volatile component — up sharply in the early 2020s, now stabilizing — while burglary has fallen the most over the long run, dropping by more than 70% since 1991. Larceny-theft, the largest category in absolute terms, has tracked the overall trend closely.
Urban vs Rural Property Crime
The "urban states have more crime" intuition is mostly true at the margin, but the relationship isn't as clean as it looks. New York and Illinois — both heavily urban — rank in the safer half of the country on property crime, while Oklahoma and Louisiana, which skew rural, rank near the top. Population density matters less than economic conditions, drug-market presence, and local prosecutorial policy.
What's Behind the State-Level Variation?
Researchers attribute most of the cross-state variation to four factors:
- Concentrated poverty and substance-use disorder — the strongest correlate at the county level.
- Property recovery and reporting rates — states with higher reporting compliance look "worse" in the data even when underlying crime is similar.
- Prosecutorial thresholds — states that charge low-value theft as misdemeanors below higher dollar caps (e.g. CA Prop 47, WA reform) sometimes see higher reported volumes.
- Tourism and transient populations — Hawaii, Florida, and Nevada record elevated rates partly because the denominator (residents) understates exposure.
Compare Any Two States on Crime — Free vs Paid
The headline rate is only the surface. The StatsPanda Comparison Tool lets you compare any two U.S. states (or up to five for subscribers) across the full crime category — including:
- Violent crime rate (homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault)
- Property crime rate (burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft) broken out
- 10-year trend lines
- Per-capita police staffing and clearance rates
- Incarceration rate and parole population
Free users get the headline Population, Economy, and Demographics tabs. The Crime category is part of the StatsPanda subscription tier — along with Health, Education, and Public Safety.
Explore Related Data
Key Takeaways
- Washington has the highest property crime rate of any state at 3,210 / 100K; New Hampshire is the lowest at 855.
- National property crime is down 4.2% year-over-year and ~60% since 1991.
- The riskiest states cluster in the Pacific Northwest, Mountain West, and Gulf South; the safest cluster in New England and the Upper Midwest.
- Motor vehicle theft spiked in 2020–22 and is now stabilizing; burglary continues its long-run decline.
- Population density alone does not predict the ranking — NY and IL are safer than most "rural" rankings.
Compare Any Two States on Crime — Free
Use the StatsPanda Comparison Tool to put any two U.S. states head-to-head on demographics, economy, and population. Free users get core categories; subscribers unlock the full crime and health datasets.
Open the Comparison ToolUnlock the Full Crime Category
Free users can compare 2 states on Population, Economy, and Demographics. Subscribers unlock up to 5-way comparisons, the full Crime, Health, and Education categories, ranking heatmaps, and CSV/Excel export.
Upgrade for Full Crime DataMethodology
All state-level rates are computed from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program / National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data published through the FBI Crime Data Explorer, normalized to incidents per 100,000 residents using U.S. Census mid-year population estimates. Property crime aggregates burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft per the FBI's standard definition. Year-over-year changes compare the most recent finalized reporting year to the prior year. Some states have incomplete reporting compliance; figures shown are the FBI's released estimates with imputation. Explore and compare the full dataset at statspanda.com/tools/compare.
