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Theft recorded by the police

How many thefts did the police record in each European country, for its population?

37 of 37 shown in the list

offences recorded per 100,000 inhabitants

  1. Luxembourg2,711.9 2024
  2. Denmark2,623.3 2024
  3. Sweden2,510.2 2024
  4. Finland2,277.0 2024
  5. Norway2,099.9 2024
  6. Switzerland1,966.1 2024
  7. France1,911.5 2024
  8. Belgium1,658.0 2024
  9. Italy1,552.3 2024
  10. Germany1,376.7 2024
  11. Ireland1,334.7 2024
  12. Netherlands1,330.5 2024
  13. Slovenia1,226.8 2024
  14. Austria1,180.0 2024
  15. Iceland1,002.2 2024
  16. Malta751.6 2024
  17. Estonia731.0 2024
  18. Portugal722.4 2024
  19. Latvia649.6 2024
  20. Liechtenstein639.8 2024
  21. Hungary629.6 2024
  22. Greece606.6 2024
  23. Spain450.9 2024
  24. North Macedonia440.9 2024
  25. Lithuania409.5 2024

Source: Eurostat, Police-recorded offences by offence category (crim_off_cat). Data for 2020 to 2024. What it counts, how to cite it and the data

At a glance

  • 37 countries or territories have a figure.
  • The highest is Luxembourg at 2,711.9 (2024) and the lowest is Montenegro at 57.7 (2024).
  • The middle value (the median) is 649.6.

What it counts

Offences recorded by the police under the category “Theft” of the International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes (ICCS), per 100,000 inhabitants, in the latest year each country reports (since 2019).

What it leaves out, and how far to trust a comparison

Police-recorded crime depends on how much is reported to the police, on how each police force records it and on how each country defines the offence, so a difference between countries can reflect recording and reporting at least as much as a real difference. A higher figure can mean more crime, more reporting or more complete recording. It is not a ranking of how safe a country is, and it counts only what reached the police. Theft is reported much more often where insurance or a police report is needed, so the figure follows reporting habits closely. Eurostat marks Kosovo with an asterisk: this designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.

Source

Eurostat: Police-recorded offences by offence category (crim_off_cat). Source licence: CC BY 4.0. Data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.

Cite this chart

Free to use in teaching, articles, reports and slides, with credit. Our compilation is licensed CC BY 4.0; the source publishes the underlying data under its own licence, shown below.

Reference (APA style)

TheLawToKnow. (2026). Theft recorded by the police [Chart]. Law in Charts. https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/theft-recorded. Data: Eurostat, Police-recorded offences by offence category (crim_off_cat), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/crim_off_cat/default/table (data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25).

Short credit for slides and websites

Chart: TheLawToKnow, Law in Charts (https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/theft-recorded). Data: Eurostat.

BibTeX

@misc{theftrecorded2026,
  author = {{TheLawToKnow}},
  title = {Theft recorded by the police},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Law in Charts},
  url = {https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/theft-recorded},
  note = {Data: Eurostat, Police-recorded offences by offence category (crim_off_cat), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/crim_off_cat/default/table. Retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.}
}

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