Sylva, NC has a F safety grade (18/100) with a violent crime rate of 519 per 100,000, 47% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
Sylva is a small municipal reporter (2,697 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with NC and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Sylva, NC is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 47% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Sylva, NC shows violent crime at 519.1 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 4,301.1 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 47% 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.
Small-count caution
Sylva reported 14 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 2,697. At this volume one additional or one fewer report moves the per-100,000 rate noticeably, so the figure is better read as a data point than as a precise measurement, and year-to-year swings here are expected.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 290.2 per 100,000 in 2020 to 519.1 in 2024 (+78.9%). The highest observed value was 757.3 in 2023 and the lowest 290.2 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Sylva's 519.1 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Washington (520.0), Beulaville (524.0), Sharpsburg (512.8), Forest City (527.7). 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 519.1 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Sylva ranks 50 of 206 — above 156 of the 205 other North Carolina cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +97.0% against the cohort median of 263.5. 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 Sylva'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.
Based on 14 reported violent incidents in a population of 2,697. At this volume, one additional or one fewer report can shift the rate and letter grade noticeably; small-city crime counts are inherently more volatile year to year than large-city counts, so treat this grade as a data point, not a precise ranking.
Small-city offense counts above are voluntary UCR submissions, not neighbourhood advice. Year-to-year swings can look large when the population base is modest.
Across 3.2 Census sq mi, Sylva logged 36.6 property and 4.4 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Sylva's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (66% of 130 offenses; mix index 4,812).
Violent offenses are only 11% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Sylva offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (3.2 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 | 116 | 4301.1 |
| Larceny-Theft | 86 | 3188.7 |
| Burglary | 24 | 889.9 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 6 | 222.5 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 14 | 519.1 |
| Aggravated Assault | 11 | 407.9 |
| Murder | 1 | 37.1 |
| Rape | 1 | 37.1 |
| Robbery | 1 | 37.1 |
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 | 2,757 | 290.2 | 2720.3 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 2,757 | 689.2 | 3590.9 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 2,633 | 493.7 | 5089.3 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 2,641 | 757.3 | 4051.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 2,697 | 519.1 | 4301.1 |
Sylva Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Sylva's 130 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 North Carolina cities closest to Sylva in population. Their populations run from 2,457 to 2,915, against 2,697 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Sylva sits at 519.1/100K violent (grade F); the North Carolina cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Sylva reported 14 violent crimes and 116 property crimes, for a total of 130 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Sylva's violent crime rate decreased by 31.5%, and the property crime rate increased by 6.2%.
The most common crime type in Sylva is larceny-theft, accounting for 66.2% of all reported crimes (86 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: Sylva is sourced from FBI UCR Table 8 for 2024; rates use that row's population.
Small-city rows use the same per-100,000 formula; a few unreported years can leave gaps in the trend table. Verify the agency's submission on FBI.gov UCR.
Disclaimer (small city): UCR counts here are informational only. They are not a victimization probability. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Small-city rate methodology for how Sylva's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Sylva, NC rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Sylva, NC FBI UCR record to work: compare peers, open the state atlas, or look up another city.
A citywide UCR rate is a starting point, not a neighbourhood verdict: read the full profile and the year coverage notes before drawing conclusions.
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Sylva is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (2,697 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.