Burlington, VT has a F safety grade (22/100) with a violent crime rate of 479 per 100,000, 36% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Burlington (44,456 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then VT and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Burlington, VT carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 36% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Burlington, VT shows violent crime at 479.1 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 4,289.6 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 36% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade F from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Position in the state cohort
At 479.1 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Burlington ranks 6 of 53 — above 47 of the 52 other Vermont cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +231.2% against the cohort median of 144.7. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Burlington's 479.1 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Rutland (475.0), Lyndonville (490.6), Bennington (389.1), Winooski (348.4). 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 368.6 per 100,000 in 2020 to 479.1 in 2024 (+30.0%). The highest observed value was 479.1 in 2024 and the lowest 358.6 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Share of the state cohort
The 2,120 Part I offenses reported here are 21.6% of the 9,815 reported across all 53 comparable Vermont cities in 2024. A city this large moves the statewide municipal total on its own, so state-level changes should be read against its population of 44,456 rather than as a uniform shift.
Property counts dominate Burlington'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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Across 10.3 Census sq mi, Burlington logged 185.1 property and 20.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Burlington's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (78% of 2,120 offenses; mix index 6,226).
Violent offenses are only 10% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Burlington offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (10.3 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 | 1,907 | 4289.6 |
| Larceny-Theft | 1,652 | 3716 |
| Burglary | 171 | 384.6 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 84 | 189 |
| Arson | 10 | 22.5 |
| Violent Crime | 213 | 479.1 |
| Aggravated Assault | 179 | 402.6 |
| Robbery | 24 | 54 |
| Rape | 9 | 20.2 |
| Murder | 1 | 2.2 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 42,862 | 368.6 | 2431.1 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 42,946 | 358.6 | 3564.9 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 44,689 | 420.7 | 5180.2 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 44,522 | 426.8 | 6661.9 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 44,456 | 479.1 | 4289.6 |
Burlington Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Burlington's 2,120 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 Vermont cities closest to Burlington in population. Their populations run from 10,733 to 22,347, against 44,456 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Burlington sits at 479.1/100K violent (grade F); the Vermont cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Burlington at 479.1/100K violent and 4,289.6/100K property - matched below outside Vermont (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
479.1/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
4,289.6/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (+12.3% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Burlington reported 213 violent crimes and 1,907 property crimes, for a total of 2,120 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Burlington's violent crime rate increased by 12.3%, and the property crime rate decreased by 35.6%.
The most common crime type in Burlington is larceny-theft, accounting for 77.9% of all reported crimes (1,652 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Burlington figures are FBI UCR CIUS Table 8 (vintage 2024), population-adjusted per 100,000.
Denominators are the reporting-year population on the municipal row. Incomplete years are dropped from rankings. Confirm at FBI Crime Data Explorer and Census.gov QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (mid-size municipal): figures are informational, not advice. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is the source. Consult a professional before decisions.
Mid-size rate methodology for how Burlington's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Burlington, VT 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. Burlington is scored in the mid-size municipal band (44,456 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.