Car theft in the United States dropped 23.2% in 2025 compared to 2024, falling from 850,708 stolen vehicles to 659,880, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau’s own year-end figures — nearly 191,000 fewer vehicles taken than the year before. That follows an already sharp 17% decline in 2024, meaning the country has now logged two consecutive years of double-digit drops in vehicle theft after a stretch of steep post-pandemic increases. The declines weren’t evenly spread, though. Some states saw thefts fall by a third or more, while one state moved in the opposite direction entirely. Here’s where the biggest improvements happened, and which states are still carrying the country’s highest theft rates.
The States With the Biggest Declines
In raw numbers, a handful of high-population states accounted for the bulk of the national drop. According to NICB’s full-year 2025 release, the states with the largest declines in total vehicles stolen were:
- California — 45,278 fewer thefts
- Texas — 23,027 fewer thefts
- Washington — 11,617 fewer thefts
- Florida — 10,929 fewer thefts
- Colorado — 8,863 fewer thefts
Measured by percentage rather than raw count, the shift looks even sharper in some smaller markets. NICB’s mid-year 2025 report, covering the first six months of the year against the same period in 2024, found Washington state down 42%, North Dakota and Louisiana each down 32%, and Colorado down 31% — evidence that the decline touched both large states and smaller ones, not just the handful of markets that move the national total the most.
Where Theft Rates Are Still Highest
Raw declines don’t tell the whole story, because some places started from a much higher baseline than others. Washington, D.C. has consistently posted the nation’s highest per-capita theft rate through this entire stretch. In 2024, D.C.’s rate stood at 842.4 stolen vehicles per 100,000 residents, itself down 18% from the year before but still far above every state in the country. Six months into 2025, D.C. remained on top at 373.09 per 100,000 residents for that half-year period, trailed by California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado rounding out the top five. The pattern holds across both reporting periods: the same cluster of Western and Southwestern states, plus D.C., keeps showing up at the top of the per-capita list even as their raw numbers improve.
The Outliers Moving Against the Trend
Almost every state saw fewer vehicle thefts across this stretch, which makes the exceptions worth naming. Maine was the only state to post an increase for full-year 2024, rising 2% year-over-year according to NICB’s report for that year. In the first half of 2025, Alaska took over as the lone state moving the wrong direction, posting a 26% increase that NICB’s mid-year release attributes primarily to theft activity concentrated in Anchorage. Neither state’s increase came close to offsetting the national decline, but both are useful reminders that a strong nationwide trend can still mask a local one heading the other way.
What’s Behind the Drop
NICB has pointed to a mix of factors rather than a single cause. Following the 2024 numbers, NICB President and CEO David Glawe called the decline “the largest annual decrease in stolen vehicles in the last 40 years,” per the organization’s own release. In the more recent full-year 2025 report, NICB credited the continued slide to “coordinated prevention and intelligence sharing between law enforcement and industry, public awareness campaigns, technology and resource investments,” alongside strengthened criminal penalties in several states, according to the bureau’s latest release. For drivers, the practical upshot is straightforward even if the causes are complicated: the odds of a parked car getting stolen have fallen substantially over the past two years almost everywhere in the country, though where you live still matters more than the national average suggests.
What This Looks Like If You Live in a High-Rate State
None of this means the risk has disappeared, even in the states posting the steepest declines. A 30% or 40% drop off a very high 2024 baseline can still leave a state well above the national theft rate, which is exactly the situation in much of the Southwest and Mountain West right now. If you’re in one of the states that keeps showing up near the top of NICB’s per-capita rankings — D.C., California, Nevada, New Mexico, or Colorado — the two-year decline is genuinely good news, but it’s a decline from an unusually high starting point rather than a sign the problem has been solved locally. Where you park, whether your specific model shows up on stolen-vehicle lists in your area, and whether your vehicle has factory-installed anti-theft technology all still matter more to your individual odds than the national trend line does. The nationwide numbers are worth tracking as a general direction, but a state or metro-level check against NICB’s own published data is the more useful exercise if you’re actually trying to gauge your own risk.