Toronto’s crime rate coverage for 2026 begins with police-reported incidents, major offence categories, and the locations where hotspots appear on the map.

That includes violent crime trends like assault and robbery, property crime trends like auto theft and break-ins, and neighbourhood shifts that change month to month.

In this article, I will present the latest data that will help you gain more information about the current safety situation and crime rate in Toronto for 2026.

Highlights

Latest available national figures put Canada at 5,672 police reported incidents per 100,000, with both the crime rate and Crime Severity Index down 4 percent year over year.

Canada also sits far below the United States on homicide: 1.91 per 100,000 in Canada versus 5.0 per 100,000 in the United States, while the global homicide rate sits around 5.8 per 100,000.

• Canada police reported crime rate: 5,672 per 100,000
• Canada homicide rate: 1.91 per 100,000
• United States murder rate: 5.0 per 100,000
• Global homicide rate: 5.8 per 100,000

Current Crime Numbers In Toronto

According to the latest available official year-end reporting from the Toronto Police Service, Major Crime Indicators show the following counts and year over year percentage change.

Major Crime Indicators

Additional Indicators Often Used In Safety Reporting

• Assault carries the largest volume in the violent categories listed above, so shifts there move the overall safety picture.
• Auto theft shows a large percentage decline, yet the count remains high enough to stay a practical risk for vehicle owners.
• Homicide stays low volume, though the percentage increase signals volatility from one year to the next.
• Shootings and firearm discharges rise while injuries fall, which supports a split pattern: higher incident frequency with fewer injury outcomes in the same period.

How Violent Crime Looks Right Now

shows two things at the same time: broad indicators that improved during parts of 2025, and high-visibility incidents that still land hard when they happen.

Official updates from the Toronto Police chief to the Police Service Board put hard numbers behind that split.

A Police Service Board update reported the following changes for 2025 so far compared with the same point in the prior year:

All figures come from the chief remarks to the Police Service Board and the related coverage of the same update.

On the other hand, even though the trends are positive, the year overall can’t be seen as successful in terms of safety, mostly due to the shooting near the University of Toronto Scarborough campus on December 23, 2025, which led to a death and a homicide investigation.

Sexual violence remains a serious part of the Toronto safety picture, and official police reporting tracks sexual violence as a major category with an upward year over year movement in the latest year end release.

Recent coverage also shows how public space attacks on women can spike attention, such as a Toronto Police case where a man faced charges linked to multiple unprovoked TTC attacks on women reported on a bus, a streetcar, and at a subway station.

Survivors looking for support often end up searching for both services and legal advice, including queries like MassTsang sexual abuse lawyers, so any guide on safety should acknowledge the support and reporting pathways alongside the numbers.

Auto Theft, Break-ins, And Other Property Crime

Property crime in Toronto shows up as a set of distinct problems, each with a different driver.

Home entries track access control failures and routine patterns. Vehicle theft tracks organized networks and export pipelines.

Retail theft tracks repeat offenders, resale markets, and low-friction targets.

Retail Theft And Store Crime

A Toronto Police Service presentation on retail crime published a set of city figures that captures the scale and direction of retail crime inside stores.

Source: Toronto Police Service retail crime briefing document. 

Canadian law splits theft into two buckets based on value:

• Theft under $5,000 means the value stolen is $5,000 or less
• Theft over $5,000 means the value stolen is more than $5,000

Auto Theft

Auto theft remains one of the most measured property crime categories in Toronto, and the latest available official reporting lists about 9,600 reported auto theft incidents, alongside a year over year drop of 23 percent.

Even with that decline, the volume keeps the issue high on the public agenda because incidents concentrate around repeat parking locations, certain vehicle models, and organized theft networks rather than random opportunity.

Police briefings and court records describe many cases as coordinated operations tied to export and resale pipelines, which explains why prevention advice keeps focusing on parking habits, layered vehicle security, and avoiding predictable routines rather than street-level confrontation.

Areas Where Incidents Cluster Most Often

Crime in Toronto concentrates around repeat locations, not entire neighbourhoods.

Downtown Core And Transit Hubs

Downtown consistently records the highest raw incident counts because it concentrates people, transit, retail, and nightlife in a tight area.

Locations that repeatedly show up in police dashboards include:

• Yonge–Dundas area: robbery, assaults, and theft tied to crowd density and distraction
• Union Station zone: theft and robbery linked to commuter flow and late-night foot traffic
• Spadina–Queen and King West: assaults and disputes tied to nightlife hours

Suburban Transit Nodes And Malls

Outside downtown, incidents cluster around large transit and shopping nodes rather than residential streets.

Examples that repeatedly appear in police reporting:

• Scarborough Town Centre area: theft, robbery, and transit-related incidents
• Kennedy Station zone: assaults and robbery during peak transfer hours
• Yorkdale area: retail theft and parking-lot vehicle crime

What Changes During Nights And Weekends

Nights and weekends shift the pattern toward public space conflict, transit waits, and venue spillover.

Police alerts and local reporting keep pointing to the same timing triggers: early morning platforms, late night buses, and entertainment areas after midnight.

Recent Cases

Conclusion

Toronto in 2026 reads like a big city with a few consistent trouble spots and plenty of ordinary days. The data points to repeat patterns: certain offences driving most of the totals, certain areas showing up again and again, and late nights carrying more risk than weekday afternoons.

Canada also sits well below the United States and the global rate on homicide, which keeps the Toronto picture in proportion. Use the numbers to see where problems concentrate, then make decisions based on that, not on one incident or one week.