How does the 2025 national homicide rate compare to 2024 — did it rise or fall and by what percent?
Executive summary
The national homicide rate fell from 2024 to 2025 — by roughly one-fifth — with multiple real‑time data aggregators and crime analysts reporting a decline of about 17–20% year‑over‑year (RTCI/AH Datalytics estimates) [1] [2] [3]. That decline is provisional and based on real‑time and city‑level reporting; federal year‑end FBI figures that would provide an official national tally were not yet available in the cited reporting [1] [4].
1. What the headline numbers say: a near‑20% drop
Analysts citing the Real‑Time Crime Index (RTCI) and AH Datalytics calculate that murders in 2025 fell roughly 19–20% compared with 2024 — a decline described as the largest single‑year drop on record — with Jeff Asher and outlets like Axios, NPR and The Hill reporting the near‑20% fall [1] [5] [3] [6]. Multiple outlets repeated RTCI’s estimate that murders nationwide were nearly 20% lower in 2025 than in 2024, and one widely cited RTCI count gave 5,912 homicides in the first ten months of 2025 versus 7,369 in the same period of 2024 [7] [8] [1].
2. Variation by data source and geography: 17% to 20% and city differences
Independent analyses and institutional reviews show a consistent but not identical picture: the Council on Criminal Justice found a 17% decline in homicides across its 30‑city sample for the first half of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024 [4], while other compilations and national RTCI aggregates put the drop nearer 19–20% [2] [1]. Even with a strong national downward trend, the change was uneven: many big cities registered steep declines (Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C. cited with sharp year‑over‑year drops) while some jurisdictions bucked the trend and saw increases or smaller declines, as reported in the Major Cities Chiefs Association survey and local reporting [9] [10].
3. Why caveats matter: preliminary data, sampling and methodology
The near‑20% headline relies largely on RTCI and aggregated city reporting rather than a final FBI year‑end report; RTCI compiles monthly feeds from hundreds of agencies and has historically tracked federal figures closely, but its coverage is not comprehensive and it excludes certain categories such as manslaughter or accidental deaths in its counts, which can shift totals depending on classifications [1] [8]. Media accounts and analysts explicitly note that FBI official statistics — the eventual benchmark for national crime rates — were not released at the time of reporting, so the figure should be understood as a provisional estimate based on available agency reporting [1] [4].
4. The broader trend and the political context
Reporting places the 2025 decline within a multi‑year reversal from the pandemic‑era spike: homicide rates began falling in 2023, accelerated in 2024 and reached historic declines in 2025 according to several analysts [2] [6]. That framing has opened political debate — some actors credit specific policy changes while others caution against attributing a complex, nationwide pattern to any single cause — and outlets note partisan framing of the same RTCI numbers even as they cite the same basic percentage decline [6] [8].
5. Bottom line and what remains unsettled
Bottom line: available, widely cited real‑time aggregates and crime analysts show the national homicide count fell in 2025 versus 2024 by roughly 17–20% — commonly reported as about a 20% drop — but this is a provisional figure based on RTCI and city reporting rather than a finalized federal tally, and geographic variation and methodological differences mean the precise final percentage could differ when the FBI’s official data are released [1] [4] [8]. Until the FBI’s year‑end compilation is available, the best supported statement from the cited reporting is that 2025 saw a substantial, historically large decline in homicides from 2024 on the order of roughly one‑fifth [1] [2].