US Cities by Homicide Rate 2026
Reported homicide-rate leaders among 100,000+ U.S. city records
Homicide rate compares reported murder and nonnegligent manslaughter offenses with the resident population. The unit is cases per 100,000 residents, which makes cities of different sizes more comparable than total homicide counts alone.
The 2026 edition uses FBI Crime Data Explorer / Crime in the United States 2024 Table 8 city-agency records. It is a 2026 reference page based on the latest finalized broad annual city-level snapshot available for this comparison, not completed full-year 2026 crime statistics.
The table covers FBI city or city-agency records with population of at least 100,000 and a valid FBI-reported murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rate. Police-agency boundaries do not always match municipal boundaries, and UCR participation, reporting deadlines and classification updates can affect whether a city appears in an annual table.
Birmingham, Alabama, leads this city-agency snapshot by reported homicide rate.
The page ranks the Top 50 qualifying city-agency records by reported rate.
Finalized FBI annual city-agency table used as the latest broad 2026 reference snapshot.
Reported murder and nonnegligent manslaughter per 100,000 residents.
How to read the city homicide-rate comparison
A rate-based table answers a different question than a total-count table. A very large city may record more homicides in absolute terms but rank lower by rate because its population denominator is much larger. A smaller city can rank higher when the same number of cases is spread across fewer residents.
The upper part of this ranking is concentrated in parts of the South and Midwest, with several legacy industrial cities and regional centers near the top. The distribution also shows that homicide risk is not explained by population size alone: New York and Los Angeles do not lead the rate table, while Birmingham, St. Louis, Memphis and Detroit rank much higher by per-capita rate.
Top 10 city-agency records by reported homicide rate
The ten highest rows show a steep upper tail. Birmingham and St. Louis stand far above most other qualifying records, while Memphis, Detroit, Cleveland and Dayton form the next high-rate cluster. The list is rate-based, so it should not be treated as a full safety ranking or a measure of police effectiveness.
| Rank | City | State | Rate per 100k |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Birmingham | Alabama | 58.85 |
| 2 | St. Louis | Missouri | 54.09 |
| 3 | Memphis | Tennessee | 40.61 |
| 4 | Detroit | Michigan | 31.17 |
| 5 | Cleveland | Ohio | 30.05 |
| 6 | Dayton | Ohio | 29.66 |
| 7 | Kansas City | Missouri | 27.56 |
| 8 | Shreveport | Louisiana | 26.84 |
| 9 | Washington | District of Columbia | 25.49 |
| 10 | Richmond | Virginia | 24.16 |
Rates are rounded to two decimals because the FBI city-agency rate field is used at that precision.
Chart: Top 20 reported homicide rates
The first twenty rows range from 58.85 to 17.68 homicides per 100,000 residents. The chart uses a height-adaptive HTML/CSS layout, so all twenty bars remain visible on desktop and mobile screens.
Methodology
The ranking uses the FBI Crime Data Explorer / Crime in the United States 2024 Table 8 city-agency records for reported murder and nonnegligent manslaughter. Rows were compiled from city or city-agency records with population of at least 100,000 and a valid FBI-reported rate field. The source snapshot was checked on May 24, 2026.
Indicator definition
Homicide rate means reported murder and nonnegligent manslaughter offenses per 100,000 residents.
Formula
Homicide rate = reported homicide count / agency population × 100,000.
Ranking rule
Records are sorted from the highest to lowest reported homicide rate. Equal rates would be reviewed by count, then alphabetically.
Rounding
Rates are shown to two decimal places, matching the rate precision used in the FBI city-agency table.
The 2024 full-year file is used because it is the latest finalized broad official annual city-level table suitable for comparison during this 2026 page edition. Preliminary 2025 FBI trend data were not used for the ranking because the FBI labels the early 2025 overview as subject to change before the final Reported Crimes in the Nation 2025 release.
The main limitation is comparability. UCR data are reported by law-enforcement agencies, not by a single national survey of households or victims. In most rows the agency and municipality are close matches, but some agencies cover areas that differ from city boundaries. Reporting deadlines, classification updates and agency participation can also affect whether a city appears in a given annual table.
The indicator should not be used as a complete measure of public safety. It captures one severe category of reported violent crime. It does not include nonfatal shootings, assaults, robberies, domestic violence patterns, neighborhood-level concentration, clearance rates, resident perceptions, or the many social and economic conditions associated with violence.
Full ranking: Top 50 U.S. city-agency homicide-rate records
The table lists fifty qualifying city-agency records with the highest reported homicide rates in the FBI 2024 city snapshot. Search and filters change only the visible rows; the underlying ranking order remains based on the reported rate per 100,000 residents.
| Rank | City | State | Rate per 100k |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Birmingham | Alabama | 58.85 |
| 2 | St. Louis | Missouri | 54.09 |
| 3 | Memphis | Tennessee | 40.61 |
| 4 | Detroit | Michigan | 31.17 |
| 5 | Cleveland | Ohio | 30.05 |
| 6 | Dayton | Ohio | 29.66 |
| 7 | Kansas City | Missouri | 27.56 |
| 8 | Shreveport | Louisiana | 26.84 |
| 9 | Washington | District of Columbia | 25.49 |
| 10 | Richmond | Virginia | 24.16 |
| 11 | Milwaukee | Wisconsin | 23.91 |
| 12 | Baltimore | Maryland | 23.33 |
| 13 | Cincinnati | Ohio | 21.82 |
| 14 | Louisville Metro | Kentucky | 21.72 |
| 15 | Indianapolis | Indiana | 19.98 |
| 16 | Oakland | California | 18.62 |
| 17 | Albuquerque | New Mexico | 18.43 |
| 18 | Montgomery | Alabama | 18.07 |
| 19 | Minneapolis | Minnesota | 17.95 |
| 20 | Lancaster | California | 17.68 |
| 21 | Little Rock | Arkansas | 17.63 |
| 22 | Chicago | Illinois | 17.47 |
| 23 | Philadelphia | Pennsylvania | 16.91 |
| 24 | Mobile | Alabama | 16.45 |
| 25 | Norfolk | Virginia | 16.05 |
| 26 | Stockton | California | 15.98 |
| 27 | Syracuse | New York | 15.15 |
| 28 | Nashville | Tennessee | 14.59 |
| 29 | Greensboro | North Carolina | 14.13 |
| 30 | Houston | Texas | 13.80 |
| 31 | Dallas | Texas | 13.62 |
| 32 | Rochester | New York | 13.10 |
| 33 | Rockford | Illinois | 13.08 |
| 34 | Columbus | Georgia | 12.93 |
| 35 | Akron | Ohio | 12.75 |
| 36 | Chattanooga | Tennessee | 12.71 |
| 37 | Newark | New Jersey | 12.59 |
| 38 | Buffalo | New York | 12.42 |
| 39 | Kansas City | Kansas | 12.39 |
| 40 | Fayetteville | North Carolina | 12.38 |
| 41 | Killeen | Texas | 12.37 |
| 42 | Durham | North Carolina | 12.32 |
| 43 | Columbus | Ohio | 12.23 |
| 44 | Toledo | Ohio | 12.14 |
| 45 | Newport News | Virginia | 11.98 |
| 46 | North Las Vegas | Nevada | 11.94 |
| 47 | Winston-Salem | North Carolina | 11.42 |
| 48 | Pittsburgh | Pennsylvania | 11.35 |
| 49 | San Bernardino | California | 11.15 |
| 50 | Fort Wayne | Indiana | 11.03 |
Source snapshot: FBI Crime Data Explorer / Crime in the United States 2024 Table 8 city-agency records, checked May 24, 2026. The 2026 label refers to the page edition and latest finalized full-year official snapshot used for broad city comparison.
What the ranking shows
The upper tier is unusually steep
Birmingham and St. Louis sit above 50 homicides per 100,000 residents, while Memphis is above 40. That separation matters because a rate gap of 10–20 points is large even among cities already in the high-rate portion of the table.
Population size does not determine the rank
The largest U.S. cities by population are not automatically at the top. New York and Los Angeles have far larger populations, but their homicide rates are below many mid-sized city-agency records in this snapshot.
The middle of the Top 50 includes several cities clustered between roughly 12 and 18 homicides per 100,000 residents. In this range, the difference between ranks can be relatively small, so a few additional or fewer cases can move a city several places from one annual table to the next.
The lower part of the table still represents elevated homicide rates compared with the national average. Cities ranked in the 40s remain above 11 per 100,000, which is more than double the 2024 U.S. national estimated murder rate of about 5 per 100,000 people reported in FBI national summaries.
What this means for readers
For residents and movers, the table is a starting point for understanding one severe dimension of violent crime. It should be paired with neighborhood-level data, recent local trends, nonfatal shooting data and practical information such as housing location, commuting patterns and school zones.
For businesses and analysts, the rate helps separate scale from intensity. A high total number of homicides can reflect a very large population, while a high rate points to a heavier per-capita burden. Site selection, insurance, workforce planning and public-safety analysis should not rely on this metric alone.
For policymakers, the ranking is most useful when it prompts deeper comparison: which neighborhoods concentrate violence, whether rates are rising or falling, how clearance rates are changing, and how community violence intervention, policing, housing, employment and hospital-based prevention programs interact over time.
FAQ
What does homicide rate mean?
It is the number of reported murder and nonnegligent manslaughter offenses divided by population, then multiplied by 100,000. The rate allows cities of different sizes to be compared more fairly than raw counts alone.
Is homicide rate the same as total murders?
No. Total murders count the number of offenses. The rate adjusts that count for population size. A larger city can have more homicides but a lower rate than a smaller city.
Are these completed 2026 homicide statistics?
No. The page is a 2026 edition built from the latest finalized broad official FBI city-agency annual snapshot available for comparison: calendar year 2024. Full-year 2026 city-level FBI data are not available during 2026.
Why not use preliminary 2025 FBI data?
The FBI has released preliminary 2025 national trend data, but those figures are subject to change before the final Reported Crimes in the Nation 2025 release. This table uses the latest finalized annual city-agency table available for comparable city-level rates.
Why are some major cities missing or limited?
FBI UCR participation and deadlines affect whether city-agency data appear in a given annual table. Some agencies report late, report through different structures, or have boundaries that do not align cleanly with municipal borders.
Can this table identify the safest or most dangerous cities?
No. Homicide rate is only one severe-crime indicator. A full safety assessment needs additional data on nonfatal violence, robbery, assault, property crime, neighborhood concentration, trends, emergency response, poverty, housing conditions and local context.
Why can local police dashboards differ from FBI data?
Local dashboards may use different update schedules, definitions, case statuses or geographic boundaries. FBI UCR tables are standardized for national reporting but may be revised after local records change.
Sources
-
FBI Crime Data Explorer — Downloads
Primary source environment for the Crime in the United States 2024 Table 8 city-agency records used to rank reported murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rates. -
FBI — UCR Summary of Reported Crimes in the Nation, 2024
Used for national reporting context, agency coverage and annual UCR release background. -
FBI Crime Data Explorer — National Data
Used to verify that preliminary 2025 data are identified by the FBI as subject to change before the final 2025 annual release. -
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program
Used for reporting context, crime-data definitions and limitations of law-enforcement agency reporting. -
U.S. Census Bureau — Population Estimates Program
Population estimates provide the denominator used in rate calculations and cross-city comparison.
