Most Dangerous Cities in the US Based on 2025 FBI Data

Key Takeaways

• Memphis reported the most violent crime for its size of the large US cities compared in 2025, followed by Detroit, Oakland, Kansas City and Baltimore.
• The list covers only the country's biggest cities, so a smaller city's absence says nothing about how safe it is.
• Crime lists often name different cities because they measure different things. This one looks at violent crime for a city's size, with property crime shown separately.
• A city's overall rate says little about a single neighborhood or street. Local guides, police data and recent trends give a clearer picture of a specific address.
• Wherever a city ranks, the most useful safety steps start at home: secure doors and windows, good lighting and clear views of every entrance come before any security system.

Violent crime isn't spread evenly across America's big cities. Some report it at many times the rate of others, even when the two cities are about the same size. If you're planning a move or a trip, or just trying to make sense of the headlines, those gaps are worth understanding.

We used the FBI's 2025 figures to rank the largest US cities, and we'll show you exactly how, so you know what the numbers can tell you and what they can't.

Source: City skyline at sunrise

How We Compared Reported Violent Crime Across the 50 Largest US Cities

Before the ranking, here's what it measures, where the numbers come from and what they can't tell you.

What the Comparison Measures

Our comparison looks at one thing: how often violent crime was reported in each city in 2025, relative to its population. The FBI counts four offenses as violent crime: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

To make cities of different sizes comparable, we use the standard crime rate formula from the FBI's records management guide:

Violent crime rate = Violent crimes reported ÷ Population covered × 100,000

Population covered is the number of people a city's police department serves. In the FBI's 2025 city data, Memphis police cover 606,629 people and reported 11,219 violent crimes: 11,219 ÷ 606,629 × 100,000 = 1,849.4.

Why not compare totals? A total mostly reflects a city's size. Chicago reported 11,417 violent crimes in 2025, slightly more than Memphis's 11,219, but its police cover about four and a half times as many people, so its rate is 420.4.

That's why our table shows both: the total for scale and the rate for the rank. Beside them is the property crime rate, worked out the same way for burglary, theft and stolen cars, in its own column rather than added into one score.

Data Sources and Eligible Cities

The rates are only as good as the numbers behind them, so everything comes from two public sources: the Census Bureau's 2025 city estimates and the FBI's 2025 city data, released on August 14, 2026, in the FBI's 2025 crime data release.

Each source handles a different part of the job:

We started with the 50 largest cities because size keeps rates steady: a handful of incidents can swing a small town's rate sharply but barely moves a city of several hundred thousand people. We then matched each city to its police department, which worked for 48 of the 50. Jacksonville, Florida, isn't in the FBI's 2025 city table, and the Las Vegas police cover the whole metro area, not just the city, so we left both out.

In short, the Census picks the cities, the FBI supplies the counts and population, and we turn them into rates and rank them ourselves.

Limits of a Citywide Comparison

This ranking is useful for comparing big cities, but it has limits worth knowing before you draw conclusions about any one place. The FBI's guidance on ranking cities raises several of the same points:

• It only includes crimes reported to police. Crimes that no one reports never reach the FBI data, so each rate shows reported crime, not all crime.
• Reporting and policing vary by city. Residents in some cities report crimes more readily, and some police departments look harder for crime, so two cities with similar crime can show different rates.
• It doesn't count visitors. The rate divides by residents, but commuters, tourists and event crowds can be involved in a city's crimes, which can push its rate up.
• Police areas don't always match city limits. A few departments cover a county or metro area, so their population isn't exactly the city's. The note under the table lists them.
• It's a citywide average. One number covers every neighborhood, so it can't describe a particular street or predict your own risk.
• It covers one year and one type of crime. The ranking reflects violent crime in 2025 only. It doesn't show trends or property crime, and it isn't a full safety rating.

So a high rank means a higher reported rate among the cities compared, not a verdict on a city or the people who live there.

US Cities with the Highest Reported Violent Crime Rates

With those limits in mind, here's where the cities stand. If you're comparing job offers in two big cities, or a city on your list keeps coming up in crime news, this is the table to check. Memphis reported the highest violent crime rate of the 48 cities in 2025, followed by Detroit and Oakland, and eight cities topped 1,000 violent crimes per 100,000 people. Here are the 10 highest rates, with each city's total violent crimes and property crime rate alongside.

Note: Rates are per 100,000 people served by each city's police department. For Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Nashville Metropolitan and Louisville Metro, that service area doesn't exactly match city limits.

How to Read the Results

Reading down the table, each rank looks like the same-sized step, but the gaps between cities vary a lot. Memphis's rate is about twice Houston's at No. 10, so there's a wide spread even inside the top 10. Just below it, the differences shrink: Denver, in 11th place, is only 10.4 behind Houston. When two cities sit that close, the rate tells you more than the rank.

The ranking also covers violent crime only. If you're more worried about break-ins or a stolen car, look at the property crime column, because it doesn't follow the same order. Oakland is third for violent crime but has the highest property crime rate of all 48 cities, while Milwaukee is sixth for violent crime but has the lowest property crime rate in the top 10.

Either way, a rank is only a starting point. If one of these cities is on your shortlist, the next step is to look closer at the state, the city and the neighborhood you have in mind.

How to Research a State, City, or Neighborhood

The national table is the right tool for comparing big cities, but as your question narrows, so should your source: a state guide to compare cities within one state, then our city, neighborhood and "Is it safe?" guides and local police data once you're down to one place.

Browse State, City, and Neighborhood Guides

Our guides are grouped by how far you want to zoom in:

State guides can include smaller cities this national list leaves out, and neighborhood guides compare areas within a single city. Each type has its own table below, in alphabetical order.

State guides

To compare cities within one state, start with that state's guide:

Crime rate guides

For a closer look at one place's crime numbers, find it here:

Neighborhood guides

If you're looking within Chicago or Los Angeles, these guides compare areas across each city:

"Is it safe?" city guides

If you have a safety question about one of these cities, its guide is the place to start:

Check Local Data and Recent Trends

Once a guide has helped you narrow your search to, say, an apartment in one city, the most useful data comes from the city itself: its police department's crime map or incident dashboard, or the city's open data portal. Before you read anything into it, check the dates it covers and whether its boundaries include the area you're looking at.

Then zoom in on the places you'd actually spend time: the block around the apartment, your route to work or school and anywhere you'd go at night. Local maps usually show individual incidents rather than rates, so use them to compare one part of the city with another, not to compare the city with the national table.

Once you know what happens nearby, look at how it has changed. Compare several full years if the data allows, since one unusual year can make an area look better or worse than it usually is. Keep violent and property crime separate as you go, because a street can see frequent car break-ins and very little violent crime.

Finally, match the numbers with what you see in person: what kind of building it is, how well the street and entrances are lit, how busy the block is at different hours and when you'd be coming and going. Talking with neighbors or the building manager can fill in what the data leaves out. If the block has too few incidents to show a pattern, widen the view to the surrounding neighborhood or a longer stretch of time, or call the police department's non-emergency line and ask about the area.

Why This List May Differ from Other City-Safety Rankings

As you check other sources, you'll likely find lists that rank cities differently, and that doesn't make either one wrong. City-safety rankings have no shared standard, so the result depends on which cities a list includes, what it counts, what population it divides by and where its data comes from. Most lists fall into one of four types:

This list is the second type. The first, a total crime rate, can move a city up or down because of its car theft or shoplifting. Our guide to the safest cities in the US takes that approach, combining both kinds of crime from the same 2025 FBI data for every city of at least 250,000 people. The third, a safety score, may also weigh things like traffic deaths, natural disaster risk or financial factors. The fourth, a global crime index, may rest on how safe residents say they feel, like the crowd-sourced indexes behind our list of the most dangerous cities in the world, or on police data that isn't comparable across countries.

So when two lists disagree, check which type each one is before deciding which to trust. A city with a lot of car theft but relatively little violent crime can rank high on a total crime list and much lower on this one, and both lists can be accurate. Just don't mix their numbers into a single ranking.

How to Improve Home Security Wherever You Live

A ranking can tell you how a city compares, but the part you can actually control is your own home. Whether your city sits near the top of the list or the bottom, the same two steps help: first secure the entrances, then decide how much help you want from a security system.

Start with Entry Points and Visibility

A simple way to check your home is to look at it the way a stranger passing by would, and ask three questions in turn.

Can someone get in easily? Test every door and window lock, including the garage and side doors, and bring in any spare key hidden outside. If you rent, choose fixes you can remove when you move out, like removable window locks or door reinforcements that don't need drilling.

Can they tell no one's home? Packages on the step, a pile of mail or posts about a trip you're still on all suggest the house is empty. Bring deliveries in quickly, and check doors and windows each time you leave.

Would they be seen? Lighting at the front door, driveway and back door, and shrubs kept trimmed, make it harder to approach unnoticed. If you have a doorbell or camera, check that branches, walls or bright light behind a visitor don't block its view.

Choose the Right Level of Security Support

Once the entrances are covered, a security system lets you see who comes to your door and keeps a record of it. We offer two systems that store footage locally with no required monthly fee, and the main difference is how they're built:

If you'd like to install things yourself and start with the spot that worries you most, such as the front door or the garage, the eufy LocalSecure System lets you begin with one kit and add devices later, all tied together by the HomeBase S380. If you're protecting a larger property or a small business and want every camera recording around the clock, the eufy ProSecure System runs wired cameras into one eight-channel recorder, which can grow to 16 channels with a PoE switch sold separately. Whichever you choose, it works best on top of the basics above, not instead of them.

Related Blogs

You might find these helpful:

• Most Dangerous Cities in California Based on Crime Rates
• Most Dangerous Cities in Texas Based on Crime Rates
• Home Burglary Statistics 2026: What the Latest Data Reveals
• What Are Home Security Tips Every Homeowner Needs

Conclusion

Rankings like this one get attention because they seem to offer a quick answer about whether a city is safe. What they really offer is a starting point. Our comparison shows where violent crime was reported most often among the country's biggest cities in 2025, which helps when you're weighing one city against another. It can't tell you about the street you'd live on, though. For that, the local guides and the city's own data will take you further, and the steps you take at your own front door are the part you control, wherever you live.

FAQs

What Is the Most Dangerous City in the US Based on 2025 FBI Data?

Based on the FBI's 2025 data, it's Memphis, Tennessee. Of the 48 large cities we compared, Memphis had the highest reported violent crime rate, at 1,849.4 violent crimes per 100,000 people, followed by Detroit and Oakland. If you're thinking about a move there, our Memphis crime rate guide above goes into more detail.

Does the FBI Rank the Most Dangerous Cities?

No. The FBI gathers and publishes the crime data, which for 2025 came from more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies covering 96.2% of Americans, but it doesn't rank cities. It even warns against judging a place by crime numbers alone. Lists like this one are built by other organizations using the FBI's data, which is why two lists don't always agree.

Why Use Violent Crime Rate Instead of Total Crimes?

A total is mostly a measure of size: the more people a city has, the more crimes it tends to record. New York shows this clearly. In the FBI's 2025 city data, its 55,782 reported violent crimes were the most of any city on our list, yet spread across nearly 8.5 million residents, they put it 26th by rate. Comparing rates keeps big and mid-sized cities on equal terms.

Why Compare Only the 50 Largest US Cities?

To compare cities of a similar scale. We started with the 50 largest cities in the Census Bureau's 2025 estimates and ranked 48 of them, all with more than 400,000 residents; the smallest, Aurora, Colorado, has about 410,000. At that size, a handful of cases can't distort a rate the way they can in a small town. If the city you're looking at is smaller, the state guides above are a better place to start.

Can Citywide Crime Rates Tell Me Whether a Neighborhood Is Safe?

No. A citywide rate averages every neighborhood together, from busy downtown blocks to quiet residential streets, so it can't tell you much about one address. If you're comparing neighborhoods, our state, city and neighborhood guides listed above are a better starting point.