Vehicle Theft Rate by Country (per 100,000 People): Global Comparison, 2025 Edition
Motor Vehicle Theft Rates: Latest Reported Country Data
Updated: April 27, 2026
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The table compares reported motor vehicle theft across countries and territories using a population-normalised rate: cases per 100,000 people. The ranking is a 2025 edition based on the latest reported reference year available for each entry, not a claim that every country has a 2025 crime record.
Reported theft rates are shaped by both real theft activity and measurement factors such as reporting behaviour, legal definitions, counting rules, insurance incentives and enforcement priorities. The figures are best used for comparison and follow-up research, not as a final measure of personal vehicle risk.
How to read the ranking
- Rates can differ sharply between countries, reflecting both theft pressure and the consistency of incident recording.
- Very high values can reflect concentrated theft hotspots, strong reporting and recording, a high vehicle ownership base, or a broader offence definition.
- Low values can mean lower theft intensity, but can also reflect under-reporting or narrow legal classification.
- Using “per 100,000 people” supports cross-country comparison, but it is not the same as “per 100,000 vehicles”.
- For practical use, compare this metric with vehicle ownership, urban concentration, insurance reporting rules, recovery rates and clearance rates.
Data summary
Table 1 — Highest reported motor vehicle theft rates
Ranked by reported cases per 100,000 population. The reference year is shown because the dataset mixes recent and older observations.
| Rank | Country | Theft rate (per 100,000) | Year |
|---|
Top 20 by reported theft rate
