Waterloo, IA has a D safety grade (31/100) with a violent crime rate of 476 per 100,000, 35% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 66,385 residents, Waterloo is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against IA and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Waterloo, IA carries a PlainCrime D safety grade with violent crime 35% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Waterloo, IA shows violent crime at 476 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,444.8 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 35% above 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 476.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Waterloo ranks 10 of 148 — above 138 of the 147 other Iowa cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +233.5% against the cohort median of 142.7. 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 Waterloo's 476.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are De Soto (426.9), Council Bluffs (420.8), Burlington (413.8), Dubuque (400.9). 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 635.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 476.0 in 2024 (-25.1%). The highest observed value was 635.4 in 2020 and the lowest 476.0 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 67.8% of reported property offenses in Waterloo, against a cohort median of 76.8%. The remainder is burglary (389) and motor vehicle theft (133). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Waterloo'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 61.6 Census sq mi, Waterloo logged 26.3 property and 5.1 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Waterloo leans on larceny-theft at 57% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,863.
Violent offenses are 16% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Waterloo offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (61.6 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 | 1,623 | 2444.8 |
| Larceny-Theft | 1,101 | 1658.5 |
| Burglary | 389 | 586 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 133 | 200.3 |
| Arson | 17 | 25.6 |
| Violent Crime | 316 | 476 |
| Aggravated Assault | 264 | 397.7 |
| Rape | 26 | 39.2 |
| Robbery | 23 | 34.6 |
| Murder | 3 | 4.5 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 67,200 | 635.4 | 2666.7 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 67,174 | 538.9 | 2642.4 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 66,504 | 578.9 | 2535.2 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 66,211 | 576.9 | 2126.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 66,385 | 476 | 2444.8 |
Waterloo Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Waterloo's 1,939 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 Iowa cities closest to Waterloo in population. Their populations run from 47,119 to 85,711, against 66,385 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Waterloo sits at 476/100K violent (grade D); the Iowa cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Waterloo at 476/100K violent and 2,444.8/100K property - matched below outside Iowa (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
476/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,444.8/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (-17.5% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Waterloo reported 316 violent crimes and 1,623 property crimes, for a total of 1,939 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Waterloo's violent crime rate decreased by 17.5%, and the property crime rate increased by 15%.
The most common crime type in Waterloo is larceny-theft, accounting for 56.8% of all reported crimes (1,101 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Waterloo'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 Waterloo's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Waterloo, IA 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. Waterloo is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (66,385 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.