US murder rate is on track for a record low in 2026
The United States is on course for its lowest murder rate on record, according to federal data and crime analysts . The FBI’s First Look at 2025 crime data , drawn from agencies covering most of the population, estimated murders fell about 18% in 2025 — the largest single-year drop the bureau has recorded in decades. Year-to-date figures for 2026 are running roughly 10% below even that.
Analyst Jeff Asher, who tracks real-time city data, projects 2026 could register the fewest murders nationally since the 1960s and a rate below 4 per 100,000 — which would be the lowest since systematic federal tracking began. The decline reverses the pandemic-era spike that pushed homicides sharply higher in 2020 and 2021.
Causes are debated and likely multiple: the unwinding of pandemic disruption, a recovering economy, and renewed local violence-intervention efforts. The data is preliminary and final figures can shift, but the direction is consistent across independent trackers and the FBI’s early release.