The homicide rate in the United States fell 18.1% in 2025, reaching its lowest point in 75 years, according to an FBI report released Friday detailing the nation's crime statistics for the year. Overall violent crime decreased by 9.3% and property crime dropped 12.4% during the same period.
The FBI report, which relies on data voluntarily submitted by over 17,000 law enforcement agencies representing more than 87% of agencies in the FBI's program, indicated that the murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rate was 4.1 homicides per 100,000 people. This rate is tied with 1955 and 1956 as the lowest since the FBI began tracking these statistics in 1900.
Motor vehicle theft also saw a significant decrease of almost 23%, falling to its lowest levels in more than two decades. This decline follows a spike in thefts in 2022 and 2023, which was partly attributed to a social media challenge targeting certain Kia and Hyundai models.
President Donald Trump highlighted these crime reductions during a visit to a New York police academy, attributing the decrease to his administration's policies, including support for law enforcement and specific actions like deploying the National Guard. "We ended the war on police, and we declared a very strong war on crime," Trump stated.
However, experts caution that pinpointing a single cause for the sustained decline in crime rates, which have been falling nationally since 2022, is complex. Adam Gelb, president and CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice, noted that rates are decreasing across cities with diverse public safety strategies, economic conditions, and political leadership. "The consistency across the map should make us cautious about handing credit to any one leader, party, policy, or program before the evidence catches up,” Gelb said.
Criminologists had predicted a significant drop in homicides, with some anticipating a rate as low as 4 per 100,000 residents. The FBI's report also included an unusual early estimate indicating that violent and other crime continued to fall during the first six months of 2026, a projection typically made only after all yearly data is compiled.
Crime rates had surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, with homicides increasing by nearly 30% in 2020, marking the largest single-year jump on record. By 2022, overall violent crime in the U.S. had returned to near pre-pandemic levels.