Lynden, WA has a B safety grade (72/100) with a violent crime rate of 179 per 100,000, 49% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Lynden (16,805 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then WA and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Lynden, WA carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 49% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Lynden, WA shows violent crime at 178.5 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,130.6 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 49% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade B 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 Lynden's 178.5 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Covington (179.1), Warden (182.3), Ephrata (183.4), Blaine (173.3). 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 134.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 178.5 in 2024 (+32.8%). The highest observed value was 201.7 in 2023 and the lowest 116.7 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 87.4% of reported property offenses in Lynden, against a cohort median of 73.4%. The remainder is burglary (18) and motor vehicle theft (6). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 13.6% of the 220 Part I offenses reported in Lynden for 2024, against a median of 9.2% across comparable Washington cities — a gap of 4.4 points. Offense mix is shaped by which agencies report and how incidents are classified as well as by the underlying offenses, so it describes the reported record rather than a settled difference in conditions.
Position in the state cohort
At 178.5 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Lynden ranks 87 of 164 — above 77 of the 163 other Washington cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -4.5% against the cohort median of 186.8. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Property counts dominate Lynden'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 5.5 Census sq mi, Lynden logged 34.6 property and 5.5 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Lynden's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (75% of 220 offenses; mix index 5,868).
Violent offenses are only 14% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Lynden offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (5.5 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 | 190 | 1130.6 |
| Larceny-Theft | 166 | 987.8 |
| Burglary | 18 | 107.1 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 6 | 35.7 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 30 | 178.5 |
| Aggravated Assault | 21 | 125 |
| Rape | 6 | 35.7 |
| Robbery | 3 | 17.9 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
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 | 15,625 | 134.4 | 1548.8 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 15,791 | 139.3 | 1507.2 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 16,275 | 116.7 | 2119.8 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 16,361 | 201.7 | 1454.7 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 16,805 | 178.5 | 1130.6 |
Lynden Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Lynden's 220 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 Lynden in population. Their populations run from 16,220 to 18,806, against 16,805 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Lynden sits at 178.5/100K violent (grade B); the Washington cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Lynden at 178.5/100K violent and 1,130.6/100K property - matched below outside Washington (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
178.5/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,130.6/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Lynden reported 30 violent crimes and 190 property crimes, for a total of 220 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Lynden's violent crime rate decreased by 11.5%, and the property crime rate decreased by 22.3%.
The most common crime type in Lynden is larceny-theft, accounting for 75.5% of all reported crimes (166 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Lynden 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 Lynden's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Lynden, 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. Lynden is scored in the mid-size municipal band (16,805 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.