Cities With the Highest Murder Rate (2025)
Homicide is the most severe — and most reliably reported — offense the FBI tracks, which is why murder rate is the single most-cited crime statistic for comparing U.S. cities. This ranks every city we track (population 50,000+) by reported murders per 100,000 residents for 2025, using FBI Crime Data Explorer figures. Rates vary enormously by city — a handful of cities report a rate many multiples of the national average.
The national reported murder rate for 2025 is 4.1 per 100,000 residents. Of the 759 cities we track, 114 cities report a murder rate more than double that national average. See the full methodology for how rates are calculated from FBI Crime Data Explorer reports.
Top 25 cities by murder rate
Ranked by reported murder incidents per 100,000 residents, highest first. Population 50,000+ cities only.
| # | City | Rate per 100k | Population | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | St Louis, MO | 51.3 | 274,819 | F |
| 2 | Birmingham, AL | 43.0 | 195,393 | F |
| 3 | Albany, GA | 34.8 | 66,132 | E |
| 4 | Gary, IN | 32.7 | 67,197 | F |
| 5 | Memphis, TN | 31.3 | 606,629 | F |
| 6 | Montgomery, AL | 30.8 | 194,775 | E |
| 7 | Cleveland, OH | 28.3 | 363,659 | F |
| 8 | Rocky Mount, NC | 27.5 | 54,581 | E |
| 9 | Wilmington, DE | 27.1 | 73,773 | F |
| 10 | Kansas, MO | 25.9 | 518,039 | F |
| 11 | Detroit, MI | 25.7 | 642,155 | F |
| 12 | Milwaukee, WI | 25.4 | 559,717 | F |
| 13 | Richmond, VA | 22.9 | 235,995 | D |
| 14 | Little Rock, AR | 21.9 | 205,320 | F |
| 15 | Shreveport, LA | 21.8 | 174,114 | F |
| 16 | Harrisburg, PA | 21.7 | 50,789 | D |
| 17 | Cincinnati, OH | 20.9 | 316,260 | E |
| 18 | Compton, CA | 20.0 | 90,092 | F |
| 19 | Portsmouth, VA | 19.7 | 96,362 | E |
| 20 | Atlanta, GA | 19.0 | 525,939 | E |
| 21 | Flint, MI | 18.9 | 79,396 | E |
| 22 | Jackson, MS | 18.7 | 138,701 | C |
| 23 | Jackson, TN | 18.7 | 69,583 | E |
| 24 | Dayton, OH | 18.4 | 136,047 | F |
| 25 | Trenton, NJ | 17.5 | 91,236 | E |
At the other end of the same 759-city field, these 5 report the lowest murder rate per 100,000 residents.
No area has zero risk
A high Crime Index score means lower reported crime relative to other US cities — it is not a guarantee of safety. Reported crime is not the same as actual crime. Research on the gap between crime that occurs and crime that gets reported to police — often called the "dark figure" of crime — estimates that roughly 40% of violent crime and about a third of property crime go unreported each year. Every index built on official statistics, including this one, necessarily undercounts real crime. That gap is exactly why homicide — the offense with the smallest dark figure — anchors the calculation instead of a more commonly reported but less reliable category like theft.
Scores on this page reflect FBI-reported data for 2025. See the full methodology →