Virginia Beach, VA has a A safety grade (76/100) with a violent crime rate of 92 per 100,000, 74% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · very large city
Virginia Beach, VA Crime Rate & Safety
At 455,155 residents, Virginia Beach is a very large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against VA and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Virginia Beach, VA carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 74% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Virginia Beach, VA shows violent crime at 92.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,639.9 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 74% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade A from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
A safety grade
92.3/100K violent
1639.9/100K property
-74% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Virginia Beach, VA
Comparable rate records
Virginia Beach's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the Virginia cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Virginia Beach's 92.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Louisa (90.7), New Market (90.6), Warrenton (97.4), Independence (99.5). 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
Virginia Beach sits mid-pack among comparable Virginia cities
At 92.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Virginia Beach ranks 89 of 125 — above 36 of the 124 other Virginia cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -51.4% against the cohort median of 189.9. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Offense mix
The reported mix leans further toward property offenses than the state cohort
Violent offenses are 5.3% of the 7,884 Part I offenses reported in Virginia Beach for 2024, against a median of 10.7% across comparable Virginia cities — a gap of 5.4 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.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 101.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 92.3 in 2024 (-9.4%). The highest observed value was 122.0 in 2023 and the lowest 92.3 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Virginia Beach'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 very large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Virginia Beach's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 244.7 Census sq mi, Virginia Beach logged 30.5 property and 1.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Virginia Beach's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (84% of 7,884 offenses; mix index 7,049).
Violent offenses are only 5% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (244.7 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Violent rate moved most (2023→2024)
Violent Crime Rate
-24.3%
122 → 92.3/100K
Property Crime Rate
-5.7%
1738.6 → 1639.9/100K
Property offenses lead Virginia Beach's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
Property Crime
7,464
1639.9
1711
Larceny-Theft
6,585
1446.8
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
497
109.2
-
Burglary
382
83.9
-
Arson
42
9.2
-
Violent Crime
420
92.3
352
Aggravated Assault
179
39.3
-
Robbery
144
31.6
-
Rape
84
18.5
-
Murder
13
2.9
-
Virginia Beach Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Virginia Beach property crime rate trend
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Virginia Beach Police Department
Reporting agency for Virginia Beach NIBRS-participating
Virginia Beach Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Virginia Beach's 7,884 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.
Similar-Size Cities in Virginia
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Virginia cities closest to Virginia Beach in population. Their populations run from 97,156 to 257,248, against 455,155 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Virginia Beach at 92.3/100K violent and 1,639.9/100K property - matched below outside Virginia (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Virginia Beach reported 420 violent crimes and 7,464 property crimes, for a total of 7,884 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Virginia Beach?
From 2023 to 2024, Virginia Beach's violent crime rate decreased by 24.3%, and the property crime rate decreased by 5.7%.
What is the most common crime in Virginia Beach?
The most common crime type in Virginia Beach is larceny-theft, accounting for 83.5% of all reported crimes (6,585 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Virginia Beach'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 (very large city): informational crime rates only - not legal, insurance, or personal-safety advice. Source: FBI UCR. Ask a qualified professional before acting.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Virginia Beach, VA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.