Car Theft Risk by State: Thefts per 10,000 Registered Vehicles (2025)
Short answer: In 2025, about 23 of every 10,000 registered vehicles in the U.S. were reported stolen. California (44.1), Nevada (38.6) and Delaware (36.9) carry the highest risk per vehicle. New Hampshire (4.0), Wyoming (4.8) and Idaho (5.2) carry the lowest.
Buying a used car from a high-risk state? A stolen-vehicle record follows the VIN, not the seller. Run a VIN history report on EpicVIN before you pay, and check the free NICB VINCheck for open theft records.
Why measure per vehicle, not per resident
Most car-theft rankings divide thefts by population. That answers “how many residents are affected,” not “how likely is a given car to be stolen.” States with dense cities and fewer cars per person look safer per resident than they really are per vehicle.
Dividing by registered vehicles fixes that. It changes the ranking a lot:
| State | Rank per resident | Rank per vehicle | Shift |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 35 | 10 | ▲25 |
| Delaware | 26 | 3 | ▲23 |
| New Jersey | 31 | 14 | ▲17 |
| Rhode Island | 42 | 32 | ▲10 |
| Mississippi | 28 | 19 | ▲9 |
| Montana | 34 | 47 | ▼13 |
| South Dakota | 30 | 42 | ▼12 |
| Ohio | 17 | 27 | ▼10 |
New York is the clearest case: it ranks 35th per resident but 10th per vehicle, because New Yorkers own far fewer cars per person. Montana goes the other way; many residents own several vehicles, including motorcycles, which dilutes the risk per vehicle.
Full ranking: all 50 states
“1 in N” means one vehicle stolen for every N registered in that state.
| # | State | Thefts 2025 | Per 10k vehicles | 1 in N | Change vs 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | 136,988 | 44.1 | 227 | −25% |
| 2 | Nevada | 10,357 | 38.6 | 259 | −19% |
| 3 | Delaware | 1,641 | 36.9 | 271 | −12% |
| 4 | New Mexico | 6,769 | 35.5 | 282 | −31% |
| 5 | Maryland | 17,044 | 34.5 | 290 | −21% |
| 6 | Colorado | 16,774 | 32.2 | 311 | −35% |
| 7 | Texas | 75,269 | 32.1 | 312 | −23% |
| 8 | Missouri | 17,496 | 31.8 | 315 | −27% |
| 9 | Illinois | 28,327 | 27.9 | 358 | −18% |
| 10 | New York | 24,206 | 25.9 | 387 | −15% |
| 11 | Alaska | 1,710 | 25.1 | 398 | +7% |
| 12 | Washington | 18,039 | 24.2 | 413 | −39% |
| 13 | Kansas | 5,973 | 24.2 | 414 | −23% |
| 14 | New Jersey | 14,124 | 23.6 | 424 | −7% |
| 15 | North Carolina | 20,395 | 23.3 | 429 | −19% |
| 16 | Oregon | 8,868 | 21.0 | 477 | −26% |
| 17 | Connecticut | 5,916 | 20.9 | 480 | −25% |
| 18 | Oklahoma | 7,062 | 20.7 | 483 | −15% |
| 19 | Mississippi | 4,526 | 20.3 | 492 | −21% |
| 20 | Arizona | 12,760 | 19.8 | 505 | −27% |
| 21 | Tennessee | 13,642 | 19.6 | 510 | −31% |
| 22 | Indiana | 11,106 | 19.2 | 520 | −22% |
| 23 | Louisiana | 8,659 | 19.1 | 522 | −26% |
| 24 | South Carolina | 10,082 | 19.1 | 524 | −21% |
| 25 | Pennsylvania | 20,568 | 18.9 | 528 | −4% |
| 26 | Georgia | 17,237 | 18.7 | 533 | −28% |
| 27 | Ohio | 20,628 | 18.3 | 545 | −17% |
| 28 | Michigan | 17,298 | 17.5 | 573 | −22% |
| 29 | Nebraska | 3,372 | 17.1 | 586 | −18% |
| 30 | Minnesota | 9,570 | 16.4 | 611 | −22% |
| 31 | Kentucky | 6,926 | 15.2 | 657 | −20% |
| 32 | Rhode Island | 1,191 | 14.5 | 691 | −13% |
| 33 | Florida | 27,142 | 13.9 | 719 | −29% |
| 34 | Alabama | 7,494 | 13.8 | 727 | −20% |
| 35 | Arkansas | 4,469 | 13.4 | 747 | −24% |
| 36 | Hawaii | 1,584 | 12.5 | 797 | −11% |
| 37 | Massachusetts | 6,393 | 12.2 | 820 | −15% |
| 38 | Wisconsin | 7,020 | 12.1 | 826 | −20% |
| 39 | Virginia | 9,537 | 12.0 | 831 | −24% |
| 40 | Vermont | 731 | 11.6 | 861 | −23% |
| 41 | Utah | 3,166 | 10.3 | 974 | −20% |
| 42 | South Dakota | 1,383 | 10.0 | 1,001 | −32% |
| 43 | West Virginia | 1,450 | 9.6 | 1,045 | −22% |
| 44 | North Dakota | 932 | 8.8 | 1,138 | −30% |
| 45 | Iowa | 3,293 | 8.6 | 1,162 | −17% |
| 46 | Maine | 853 | 6.2 | 1,602 | −23% |
| 47 | Montana | 1,424 | 6.0 | 1,655 | −24% |
| 48 | Idaho | 1,078 | 5.2 | 1,909 | −22% |
| 49 | Wyoming | 430 | 4.8 | 2,071 | −25% |
| 50 | New Hampshire | 567 | 4.0 | 2,479 | −16% |
Download the full dataset: theft-risk-by-state-2025.csv. Free to reuse with a link to this page.
What this means if you are buying a used car
- Cars from top-15 states deserve a theft check. Most stolen vehicles are recovered (over 85% in 2023, per the Insurance Information Institute), and some return to the market with a theft record, a salvage brand or a swapped VIN plate.
- Match the VIN in three places: dashboard, driver-door jamb and title. A mismatch is the most common sign of a cloned VIN. See our guide to title history and liens.
- Pull a history report before money changes hands. A report shows theft and salvage records reported to NMVTIS and insurers. Compare options in our Carfax alternatives guide.
If a car comes from one of the high-risk states above, our stolen car check guide walks through the free and paid ways to verify a VIN for theft records.
Methodology
- Thefts: NICB 2025 year-end vehicle theft counts by state, as published by NICB partners in April 2026. The national total across the 50 states is 653,469 (DC and Puerto Rico excluded).
- Vehicles: FHWA Highway Statistics 2023, Table MV-1, all registered motor vehicles (cars, buses, trucks, motorcycles). 2023 is the latest complete FHWA release.
- Formula: thefts ÷ registered vehicles × 10,000. “1 in N” = registered vehicles ÷ thefts.
- Limits: registration years lag theft data by two years. States with large commercial or rental fleets registered locally can look different from where those vehicles are driven. Theft counts are reports, not convictions, and include recovered vehicles.