Crime in City of London

The safest and worst parts of City of London

Neighbourhoods inside City of London, by recorded crimes per 1,000 residents in the year to June 2026, shaded against the England and Wales average. Names are the House of Commons Library's, which are chosen to be the ones local people use.

Neighbourhoods here are Middle Layer Super Output Areas of around 7,000 residents. Each figure is an average over the whole neighbourhood, and the ones holding a town centre run high wherever daily visitors outnumber residents. How the figures work explains why these areas are used rather than electoral wards.

By type of offence

Recorded offences in the 12 months to June 2026, with the change on the 12 months before.

Set against the national mix of offences, theft from the person stands out in City of London: it accounts for roughly 7 times the share of recorded crime it does nationally, with bicycle theft and other theft also over-represented. In the other direction, anti-social behaviour, other crime, and vehicle crime all make up well under their national share.

Home Office recorded crime, data.police.uk. Rates use ONS mid-2024 population estimates (15,111 residents). Categories are the Home Office crime types as published; they are not comparable with court or conviction figures.

What happened to those crimes

Police recorded 9,774 offences other than anti-social behaviour in City of London in the year to June 2026. By the time this data was published, about 52% had been closed with no suspect identified and 19% closed because a prosecution was not possible or not pursued. Around 11% had led to a charge, caution or other formal action, and 18% were still open.

The widest shortfall against the national picture is for drugs: 38.2% of cases here ended in a charge or other formal action, against 53.4% across England and Wales.

Outcomes describe where each investigation stood when the data was published, so recent offences are naturally still open and the closed shares will edge up as cases conclude. Anti-social behaviour is left out entirely: police record no outcomes for it, and counting it would quietly flatter every percentage here. "Formal action" spans charges, summonses, cautions, penalty notices and community resolutions.

Outcomes by offence in City of London

The share of cases ending in a charge, caution or other formal action, against the same figure for England and Wales. Offences with fewer than 30 recorded cases here are left out: a percentage of twelve cases moves several points on one decision.

"Charged or dealt with" counts every outcome that is a formal action: charged, summonsed, cautioned, penalty notice, community resolution. Anti-social behaviour is excluded from both columns because it carries no outcome by design. A low rate is not necessarily a failing of the force here: some offences are far harder to detect anywhere, which is why every row is shown against the national figure for the same offence rather than against the other rows.

Over time

Recorded crime in City of London peaked at 11,771 offences in 2019; the latest 12 months, at 9,966, are about 15% below that peak. That works out at roughly 27 a day.

Download every month as CSV, including which months each force filed.

What kind of place

About 13% of the recorded crime the police placed on the map in City of London happened at one of these kinds of place rather than on an ordinary street. The biggest share was at shopping areas: 484 offences across 5 of them.

Where an offence happened at a recognised kind of place rather than on a street, the police record the kind, not the address. Below are those offences in the year to June 2026, totalled across City of London.

A supermarket car park and the supermarket itself may be separate points, and a large site can carry several, so the location count is a count of map points rather than of premises. The police place an offence at the nearest point on their published list, so these are the offences recorded at or near that kind of place, not necessarily inside it.

Streets and the crime map

The named streets with the most recorded offences in the year to June 2026, beside every mapped location in City of London.

How safe does City of London feel?

No aggregate yet: ratings are shown once at least five people have answered, because an average of two opinions is one household wearing a statistic.

Anonymous, one rating per person per area; rate again to change yours. The aggregate on this page refreshes within a day. Perception is not a crime figure and is never mixed into one, and it answers a question the recorded data cannot: how the place feels to the people reading this page.

Compared with nearby areas

Compare City of London with any other area

Against the rest of the country

In the national table, where 1st is the highest recorded crime rate, City of London was 1st of 314 in December 2010 and is 1st of 314 today.

Time of year

Recorded crime here peaks in October, about 18% above its quietest month, April.

Crime in context

City of London is the 280th most deprived of 309 areas in England, and the 1st highest of 314 for recorded crime. Crime is markedly higher here than deprivation alone would put it. That gap usually means somewhere a lot of people travel to rather than live in, since the crime counts them and the population does not.

What deprivation would predict

Across every English district, deprivation explains much of the difference in recorded crime rates. On that relationship alone, City of London's level of deprivation would predict a rate of about 67 per 1,000. It records 659.5, about 879% above it.

How tightly packed it is

5,229 people per square kilometre, across 3 km². England and Wales averages about 400 people per square kilometre. Density is the usual explanation for a high position in the national crime table: a rate divides the crime of everyone who passes through by the number who sleep there.

What a home costs

The median home sold in City of London in 2025 went for £820,000, across 157 sales, up 2.9% on 2024.

The night-time economy

City of London had 1,016 premises licensed to sell alcohol, 672.4 per 10,000 residents, against 35.9 per 10,000 across England and Wales on the same count. A concentration of licensed premises is the other half of why compact centres sit high in the national crime table: much recorded violence and public order happens where the night-time economy is, and it is counted against the people who live there rather than the people who go there.

Licensed premises are as at 31 March 2022, the last count the Home Office published by licensing authority; it has reported national totals only since, and a pub estate changes slowly enough for the count to stay worth carrying. The date is shown so nobody reads it as current. Deprivation is the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2025, averaged across the area's neighbourhoods weighted by population and ranked against every other English local authority area. It covers England only: Wales publishes a different index on a different basis and the two do not compare. The index is also not independent of what this site measures, because recorded crime is one of its seven domains and worth about a tenth of the score, so a place with a high crime rate is pushed a little way up the deprivation scale by that alone. Nothing in this section causes anything on this page: a correlation is not a cause.

Stop and search

City of London Police carried out 1,648 stop and searches in the 12 months to June 2026, 109.1 per 1,000 people in the force area. 22.3% ended in an arrest or another sanction, against 28.3% across England and Wales. The rest found nothing.

Stop and search is recorded for the whole force area rather than by town, so it is set out in full on the City of London Police page.

Every force compared, and how searches break down by the ethnicity officers recorded, is on stop and search by ethnicity.

When searches happen in City of London

Of the 3,904 searches in City of London that could be placed and timed from July 2023 to June 2026, the busiest hour was 8pm and the quietest 9am. 28% of them fell between 10pm and 4am, which is about the national share of 29%.

City of London England and Wales, for comparison. Both drawn as each one's own share of its searches, so a small area and the country can be put side by side.

Counted on the hour the search happened, in local time. Only searches carrying coordinates can be placed, which is roughly seven in eight, so the number above is smaller than this area's true total and is a sample of it rather than a count. Three years are used rather than one because a single year of one area is too thin to show a shape. Forces filing a date with no time are excluded entirely. Stop and search by time of day sets out the national picture and the method.

Who oversees policing in City of London

City of London has no elected police and crime commissioner. Its force is overseen by the City of London Corporation, through its Police Authority Board.

Questions

Is City of London safe?

In the year to June 2026, the recorded crime rate in City of London was 659.5 per 1,000 residents. That is 623% higher than the England and Wales average. A recorded crime rate measures what the police recorded, across a whole local authority area. It says nothing about any particular street, and areas with busy town centres, shopping areas or nightlife record more crime per resident because far more people are present than live there.

Is crime in City of London going up or down?

In City of London, the latest 12 months are 4.7% lower than the 12 before. Over the full series, recorded crime here peaked at 11,771 offences in 2019 and the current total is about 15% below it.

What is the most common crime in City of London?

The most commonly recorded offence in City of London is other theft, with 2,422 offences in the 12 months to June 2026 (24% of all recorded crime). The next most common is shoplifting, with 1,694.

Where does this come from?

Police recorded crime open data, published at data.police.uk by the Home Office under the Open Government Licence. It covers offences the police recorded, which is not the same as offences committed: crimes that are never reported never appear. Rates use ONS mid-2024 population estimates. How the figures work sets out the calculation, the reporting lag and every known gap.