Homicide Rate Statistics in America 2026
America’s historic homicide decline has continued into 2026, extending what is now a three-year run of record-breaking drops in lethal violence. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, the national murder rate fell an estimated 18.1% from 2024 to 2025 — the largest confirmed single-year decline in modern FBI data — while a new Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) mid-year analysis released July 23, 2026, and covered by CBS News, found homicide rates across surveyed cities down an average of 18% in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025. This builds directly on last year’s report, which tracked the 2025 decline toward an estimated 4.0-4.2 per 100,000 national rate — and the trend, while slightly more uneven city-by-city in 2026, remains firmly downward at the national level.
This updated 2026 report draws on the FBI’s “First Look” 2025 Crime Data (released May 13, 2026), the Council on Criminal Justice’s mid-year 2026 crime trends update, and confirmed CBS News reporting published July 23, 2026, to present the most current, verified homicide statistics available. It also flags an important nuance emerging this year: while the national rate continues falling, a handful of individual cities — including San Francisco, Dallas, and Norfolk, Virginia — have reported notable homicide increases in 2026, even as the overall national picture remains one of historic decline.
Interesting Facts About US Homicide Rate Statistics 2026
| Fact | Figure |
|---|---|
| FBI national murder rate decline, 2024 to 2025 | -18.1% (preliminary) |
| CCJ 35-city sample decline, 2025 | -21% (largest ever recorded) |
| Projected 2025 national homicide rate | ~4.0-4.2 per 100,000 |
| Previous FBI-era record low (2014) | 4.4-4.5 per 100,000 |
| Homicide rate decline, H1 2026 vs H1 2025 (CCJ, 21 of 30 cities) | -18% |
| FBI Q1 2026 homicide decline (67 agencies) | -17.7% |
| Cities with double-digit 2026 increases | San Francisco (+55%), Dallas (+30%) |
| Cities with the sharpest 2026 declines | Rochester, NY (-76%); Little Rock, AR (-61%) |
| Share of serious violent crimes that were fatal, H1 2026 vs H1 2025 | -23% |
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program, “First Look: 2025 Crime Data,” May 13, 2026; Council on Criminal Justice, “Crime Trends in U.S. Cities: Mid-Year 2026 Update,” July 2026; CBS News, July 23, 2026.
The 18.1% national decline confirmed by the FBI for 2025 followed a 14.9% drop in 2024 and a roughly 10-11.6% drop in 2023, meaning the United States has now recorded three consecutive years of double-digit percentage declines in murder — a pattern with no clear precedent in the FBI’s data history. Independent crime analyst Jeff Asher of AH Datalytics projects the full-year 2025 national rate landed near 4.1-4.2 per 100,000, which would sit below the previous modern record low of 4.4-4.5 per 100,000 set in 2014, and potentially represent the lowest rate recorded in law enforcement or public health data since 1900.
What makes the 2026 data particularly noteworthy is its added texture: the CCJ’s mid-year update, examining 13 crime types across 36 cities, found that while 9 of 13 categories declined in the first half of 2026, the decline was less uniform than in 2025. A small cluster of cities — most notably San Francisco, Dallas, Austin, Salt Lake City, and Norfolk, Virginia — bucked the national trend with notable increases, even as most surveyed cities continued to see homicides fall.
National Homicide Rate Trend in the US, 2020-2026
| Year | Homicide/Murder Rate Change | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | +30% (largest spike since 1900) | Pandemic-era surge |
| 2021 | Near-peak levels | ~22,900 homicides, FBI preliminary |
| 2023 | -10% to -11.6% | First major post-pandemic decline |
| 2024 | -14.9% | Largest single-year FBI decline at the time |
| 2025 | -18.1% (FBI) / -21% (CCJ city sample) | New record single-year decline |
| 2026 (H1, preliminary) | -18% (CCJ) / -17.7% (FBI Q1) | Trend continuing, less uniform by city |
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program; Council on Criminal Justice Year-End 2025 and Mid-Year 2026 Crime Trends Reports.
US Homicide Rate: Year-over-Year Change, 2023-2026
2023 ████████████ -11.6%
2024 ███████████████ -14.9%
2025 ██████████████████ -18.1%
2026 (H1) ██████████████████ -18.0%
The multi-year trend line above shows a country moving decisively away from the 2020-2021 pandemic-era homicide spike, which itself represented the largest single-year increase in the history of US crime data. Since that peak, the rate of decline has actually accelerated year over year — from roughly 11% in 2023 to nearly 15% in 2024 to a record 18.1% in 2025 — a pattern criminologists describe as unusual, since declines of this magnitude typically flatten out rather than compound. If the 2026 first-half trend of an 18% decline holds for the full year, the national homicide rate would fall even further below the historic 2025 low.
It’s worth noting that CDC National Vital Statistics System data, which counts homicide deaths somewhat differently than the FBI’s law-enforcement-reported “murder and non-negligent manslaughter” category, showed a 2025 rate closer to 5.1 per 100,000 — meaningfully higher than the FBI-based estimate of roughly 4.1 per 100,000. This gap exists because the two agencies measure different things: the CDC counts all deaths certified as homicide, including some cases law enforcement may classify differently, while the FBI’s UCR figure reflects specific criminal case classifications reported by police agencies. Readers should treat both figures as legitimate but not directly interchangeable.
FBI 2025 Crime Data and Early 2026 Trends
| Metric | 2025 (FBI First Look) | Q1 2026 (67 agencies) |
|---|---|---|
| Murder/non-negligent manslaughter | -18.1% | -17.7% |
| Robbery | -18.5% | -20.4% |
| Rape | -7.6% | -7.2% |
| Aggravated assault | -7.2% | -4.8% |
| Property crime | -12.4% | N/A |
| Overall violent crime | -9.3% | N/A |
Source: FBI, “FBI Releases Historic Early Look at Annual Crime Data,” May 13, 2026 (based on 17,000+ agencies covering 96% of the U.S. population).
FBI Preliminary Crime Decline: 2025 Full Year vs Q1 2026
Murder ██████████████████ -18.1% / -17.7%
Robbery ██████████████████ -18.5% / -20.4%
Aggravated Assault ███████ -7.2% / -4.8%
The FBI’s own “First Look” release, published May 13, 2026, marked the bureau’s most comprehensive early-year data disclosure to date, drawing on submissions from more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies covering 96% of the US population — up from 16,675 agencies the year before. The data confirmed that murder fell 18.1% alongside similarly steep drops in robbery (-18.5%) and property crime (-12.4%), while aggravated assault posted a smaller 7.2% decline, continuing that category’s pattern as the slowest-moving of the major violent crime metrics.
Early Q1 2026 data from 67 major agencies shows the decline holding steady into the new year, with murders down 17.7% compared to the same period in 2025. Some of the steepest individual declines occurred in cities that had previously struggled with elevated violence: Washington, D.C. fell 64.7%, Philadelphia dropped 54%, and San Diego fell 50% in the first quarter alone. The FBI noted declines occurred “in every region of the country,” reinforcing that this isn’t a phenomenon isolated to any single city or political jurisdiction.
Homicide Rate by City in the US 2026: Winners and Outliers
| City | H1 2026 Change (vs H1 2025) |
|---|---|
| Rochester, NY | -76% |
| Little Rock, AR | -61% |
| Lincoln, NE | -100% (zero homicides, down from 6 in 2025) |
| San Francisco, CA | +55% |
| Dallas, TX | +30% |
| Norfolk, VA | +64% (H1 2026 vs H1 2025); +36% vs H1 2019 |
| Austin, TX | +9% (+74% vs 2019) |
Source: Council on Criminal Justice, “Crime Trends in U.S. Cities: Mid-Year 2026 Update,” July 2026; CBS News reporting, July 23, 2026.
City-Level Homicide Rate Swings — H1 2026 vs H1 2025
Rochester, NY ████████████████████████████████████ -76%
Lincoln, NE ████████████████████████████████████ -100%
Little Rock, AR █████████████████████████████ -61%
San Francisco ███████████████████████ +55%
Norfolk, VA ██████████████████████████ +64%
Dallas, TX ████████████████ +30%
The city-by-city breakdown for 2026 reveals a national decline that, while still broad, is less universally consistent than in 2025. Lincoln, Nebraska recorded zero homicides in the first half of 2026, down from six during the same period in 2025 — a 100% drop that local police called a “historic milestone.” Rochester, New York (-76%) and Little Rock, Arkansas (-61%) posted similarly dramatic improvements, continuing the broader national pattern.
At the same time, four cities in the CCJ’s survey experienced double-digit percentage increases, led by San Francisco’s 55% jump — though notably, the San Francisco Police Department’s own figures (16 homicides in H1 2026 versus 13 in H1 2025) describe a smaller increase in absolute terms, since the city is working off an unusually low base after recording its lowest homicide rate in over 70 years in 2025. Dallas police similarly disputed the study’s reported 30% increase, stating their official data doesn’t reflect that scale of change — a reminder that CCJ’s analysis relies on preliminary data collected shortly after each period, which can differ from the final figures individual police departments later publish. For a broader look at which metro areas carry the highest overall crime burden, see our related coverage of the highest-crime cities in the US.
Record-Low Homicide Rate Context: 2014 vs 2025 vs 2026
| Metric | 2014 | 2025 (Projected) |
|---|---|---|
| National homicide rate (per 100,000) | 4.4-4.5 | ~4.1-4.2 (FBI-based) / ~5.1 (CDC-based) |
| Status | Previous modern record low | New potential record low |
| Comparison to 1900-present data | Lowest in decades | Potentially lowest ever recorded |
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program historical data; Jeff Asher/AH Datalytics analysis, 2026; CDC National Vital Statistics System.
Record-Low Homicide Rate Comparison
2014 (Previous Record) ████████████████████ 4.4-4.5 per 100k
2025 (Projected, FBI) ███████████████████ 4.1-4.2 per 100k
If the FBI’s final 2025 figures confirm Jeff Asher’s projection of roughly 4.1 to 4.2 homicides per 100,000 residents, it would mark a new modern-era record low, surpassing the previous benchmark of 4.4-4.5 per 100,000 set in 2014. Asher, a former CIA crime analyst and co-founder of AH Datalytics, has separately projected the 2026 murder rate could fall a further 3% to 12.5%, with a central estimate around an additional 8-10% decline for the full year — which, if realized, would push the national rate to its lowest level since national data collection began.
This achievement is especially significant given the trajectory since 2020, when the pandemic-era spike pushed homicides to their highest levels since the 1990s. The journey from that peak back down to a potential all-time low within roughly five years represents, by most measures, the fastest sustained homicide decline in US crime data history — a point echoed by DOJ officials who have publicly described the country as being “on track to have the lowest murder rate in modern American history.”
Beyond Homicide: Broader Crime Trends in the US 2026
| Crime Category | H1 2026 Trend |
|---|---|
| Carjackings | Largest decline of any category tracked |
| Drug offenses | Largest increase; still below 2019 levels |
| Aggravated assault | Roughly flat (-2% vs H1 2025; -3% vs H1 2019) |
| Robbery (national, Q1 2026) | -20.4% |
Source: Council on Criminal Justice, “Crime Trends in U.S. Cities: Mid-Year 2026 Update,” July 2026.
Crime Category Trends, H1 2026 (Relative Movement)
Carjacking ████████████████████ Largest decline
Robbery (national) ████████████████ -20.4%
Aggravated Assault ██ Roughly flat
Drug Offenses ▬ (increase) Rising, but below 2019
Beyond homicide specifically, the CCJ’s mid-year analysis of 13 crime types across 36 cities found that carjackings posted the steepest decline of any category tracked, continuing a multi-year retreat from the sharp carjacking spikes recorded during the pandemic years. Drug offenses were the notable exception, rising compared to the first half of 2025 — though CCJ researchers emphasized that even this increase leaves reported drug crime below pre-pandemic 2019 levels, suggesting the uptick reflects renewed enforcement activity as much as any genuine rise in underlying drug activity. For readers wanting the fuller annual national breakdown across every offense category, our companion report on crime statistics in the United States covers the complete 2025 FBI dataset.
Aggravated assault continues to be the stickiest major crime category, posting only a 2% decline compared to the first half of 2025 and just a 3% drop compared to pre-pandemic 2019 levels — a pattern consistent with prior years, where assault has proven far more resistant to the broader downward trend than murder, robbery, or carjacking.
Factors Behind the Historic Decline in US Homicides 2026
| Cited Factor | Detail |
|---|---|
| Consistency across political jurisdictions | Declines occurred regardless of city leadership, housing, or economic conditions |
| Technology and behavioral shifts | Cited by CCJ as a possible macro-level factor keeping people home more |
| Reduced alcohol misuse | Cited as a contributing behavioral trend |
| No single dominant explanation | CCJ leadership stresses multiple overlapping causes |
Source: Council on Criminal Justice; statement of CCJ President and CEO Adam Gelb, July 2026.
Reported Contributing Factors to the 2026 Decline (Illustrative)
Macro-level behavioral shifts ████████████████████
Local policy/programs ██████████████
Reduced alcohol misuse ██████████
Perhaps the most striking element of the CCJ’s July 2026 report is its finding that homicide and crime rates are falling “across the map, in cities with different political leadership, housing and economic conditions, policing and prosecution strategies, violence reduction models, and levels of federal enforcement activity,” according to CCJ President and CEO Adam Gelb. This breadth strongly suggests that no single local policy explains the trend — instead, Gelb pointed to “macro-level forces” including shifting technology use patterns that may be keeping more people at home, alongside a measurable decrease in alcohol misuse nationally.
This assessment echoes what researchers found in analyzing the 2024 and 2025 declines as well: while individual cities have credited specific local interventions — Norfolk’s police chief, for example, pointed to increased strategic staffing and expanded technology use for that city’s 2025 low — the sheer consistency of the decline across cities with wildly different approaches to policing and prosecution suggests broader societal and generational trends are doing much of the underlying work, even if local factors still matter at the margins.
US Homicide Rate Outlook for the Rest of 2026
| Projection | Source | Estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Jeff Asher (AH Datalytics) | 2026 full-year murder decline | ~8-10% (range: 3-12.5%) |
| CCJ mid-year data (30 cities, through April/May) | 2026 decline vs 2025 | ~10.3% |
| FBI Q1 2026 (67 agencies) | Homicide decline vs Q1 2025 | -17.7% |
| 12-month rolling (FBI, through April 2026) | Murder decline vs prior 12 months | -18.2% |
Source: Jeff Asher/AH Datalytics, “The 2026 Murder Forecast”; Council on Criminal Justice Mid-Year 2026 Update; FBI preliminary data.
2026 Full-Year Murder Rate Projections (Range)
Low estimate ███ -3%
Central estimate ████████ -8% to -10%
High estimate ████████████ -12.5%
Looking ahead, most analysts expect the decline to continue through the remainder of 2026, though likely at a somewhat more moderate pace than the record-breaking drops of 2024 and 2025. Jeff Asher’s own forecasting model, published in his “2026 Murder Forecast,” projects a further decline of between 3% and 12.5%, with a central estimate landing around 8% — a deceleration from 2025’s historic 18-21% drop, but still consistent with a country continuing to move toward record-low levels of lethal violence.
The most recent 12-month rolling FBI data, covering the period through April 2026, shows murders down 18.2% compared to the prior 12-month period — suggesting the deceleration Asher projects may not yet be fully visible in the national numbers, even as certain individual cities buck the trend. Given the demographic and geographic patterns behind who is most affected by homicide, readers may also find it useful to review our detailed breakdown of the murder rate by race in the US, which contextualizes how this national decline has been distributed across different communities.
Disclaimer: The data research report we present here is based on information found from various sources. We are not liable for any financial loss, errors, or damages of any kind that may result from the use of the information herein. We acknowledge that though we try to report accurately, we cannot verify the absolute facts of everything that has been represented.
