Bellingham, WA has a D safety grade (35/100) with a violent crime rate of 350 per 100,000, 1% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 95,717 residents, Bellingham is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against WA and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Bellingham, WA carries a PlainCrime D safety grade with violent crime 1% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Bellingham, WA shows violent crime at 350 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 3,756.9 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 1% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade D from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Bellingham's 350.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Pasco (347.6), Soap Lake (341.1), Renton (339.2), Arlington (337.8). These are same-year agency submissions that pass the same completeness screen, not a claim that the cities have identical conditions. They make the cohort position above checkable against named records instead of a generic state average.
Position in the state cohort
At 350.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Bellingham ranks 35 of 164 — above 129 of the 163 other Washington cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +90.3% against the cohort median of 183.9. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 263.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 350.0 in 2024 (+32.7%). The highest observed value was 421.9 in 2021 and the lowest 263.8 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 82.9% of reported property offenses in Bellingham, against a cohort median of 73.4%. The remainder is burglary (470) and motor vehicle theft (146). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Bellingham's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; cities that fail the completeness test stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
On a large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Across 28.2 Census sq mi, Bellingham logged 127.5 property and 11.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Bellingham's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (76% of 3,931 offenses; mix index 5,944).
Violent offenses are only 9% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Bellingham offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (28.2 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 3,596 | 3756.9 |
| Larceny-Theft | 2,980 | 3113.3 |
| Burglary | 470 | 491 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 146 | 152.5 |
| Arson | 8 | 8.4 |
| Violent Crime | 335 | 350 |
| Aggravated Assault | 239 | 249.7 |
| Robbery | 74 | 77.3 |
| Rape | 20 | 20.9 |
| Murder | 2 | 2.1 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 93,629 | 263.8 | 4643.9 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 95,279 | 421.9 | 5076.7 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 93,014 | 415 | 6549.6 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 94,968 | 329.6 | 4220.4 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 95,717 | 350 | 3756.9 |
Bellingham Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Bellingham's 3,931 reported offenses (5-year span 2020-2024).
This agency reports via NIBRS, the incident-based system that captures more detail per offense (multiple crimes per incident, victim/offender data) than the older summary counts.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Washington cities closest to Bellingham in population. Their populations run from 82,746 to 109,852, against 95,717 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Bellingham sits at 350/100K violent (grade D); the Washington cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Bellingham at 350/100K violent and 3,756.9/100K property - matched below outside Washington (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
350/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
3,756.9/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (+6.2% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Bellingham reported 335 violent crimes and 3,596 property crimes, for a total of 3,931 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Bellingham's violent crime rate increased by 6.2%, and the property crime rate decreased by 11%.
The most common crime type in Bellingham is larceny-theft, accounting for 75.8% of all reported crimes (2,980 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Bellingham's rates come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, CIUS Table 8, vintage 2024.
Incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. Cross-check population with Census ACS; state UCR programs for statewide context. Primary verify links: FBI.gov UCR, Census QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (large city): informational crime rates only - not legal, insurance, or personal-safety advice. Source: FBI UCR. Ask a qualified professional before acting.
Large-city rate methodology for how Bellingham's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Bellingham, WA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Bellingham is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (95,717 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.