Burglary in Tampa, 2019–2025: The FBI Data and a Door-by-Door Checklist
Tampa police reported 447 burglaries to the FBI for 2025, the lowest of any year covered here and fewer than half the 1,022 they reported for 2019. That comes to 106.1 burglaries per 100,000 residents, against a national rate of 193.6.
We're a lock shop in South Tampa, not crime analysts, so we stuck to what the federal tables actually say: how many burglaries, how the city's rate compares, where they happened, how entry was made and at what time of day. Then we pair each finding with a door you can check. Each table names and links its source, and the whole set is a spreadsheet you can download.
By The Locksmith Shop, South Tampa ·
Key numbers
- 447 burglaries in 2025, down from 1,022 in 2019, reported by the Tampa Police Department (FBI Table 8).
- 106.1 per 100,000 residents in 2025, against 193.6 for the U.S. and 304.5 for U.S. cities of 250,000 to 499,999 people (FBI Tables 1 and 16).
- 56.1% at a residence: 245 of the 437 Tampa burglaries in the FBI's 2025 location data (FBI Crime Data Explorer).
- 39.5% with no force: the share of 2025 burglaries in the FBI's national entry-type table where no force was used (FBI Table 15).
- More by day than by night: 188,672 daytime and 152,205 nighttime home burglaries nationally in 2025 (FBI Table 7).
Sources and method: how we pulled these numbers. Data: download the CSV.
Six years of Tampa burglary numbers
The FBI's annual Crime in the United States report includes Table 8, a list of every city whose police department sent the Bureau 12 months of complete data. Tampa appears in it for every year from 2019 through 2025 except 2021. The rate column is our arithmetic: burglaries divided by the population in the same table, times 100,000.
| Per 100,000 residents | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Burglaries | Population | Tampa | U.S. |
| 2019 | 1,022 | 400,501 | 255.2 | 331.1 |
| 2020 | 925 | 407,350 | 227.1 | 306.0 |
| 2021* | – | – | – | 263.4 |
| 2022 | 756 | 390,145 | 193.8 | 272.6 |
| 2023 | 783 | 403,407 | 194.1 | 253.2 |
| 2024 | 684 | 408,646 | 167.4 | 231.0 |
| 2025 | 447 | 421,313 | 106.1 | 193.6 |
Tampa: FBI, Crime in the United States, Table 8, from the 2019 edition and the 2020 and 2022–2025 editions. U.S.: the FBI's national estimates in Crime in the United States 2025, Table 1.
*No Tampa figure was published for 2021 (see below). The FBI says its 2021 national estimate isn't comparable to other years.
From 2019 to 2025 the count fell 56.3%, and 2025 alone brought a 34.6% drop from 684. Nationally, burglaries fell 15.8% from 2024 to 2025 (Table 1A). The decline wasn't a straight line: 2023 came in a little above 2022, 783 against 756. In every year shown, Tampa's rate sat below the national one.
Why 2021 is missing
On January 1, 2021, the FBI began taking crime data only through its National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS. The Bureau received limited 2021 data from Florida, and its 2021 city table lists no Florida cities at all, Tampa included. The FBI marks Florida's data as limited for 2022 through 2025 as well, but Table 8 includes only agencies that sent 12 months of complete data, so Tampa's figures for those years each cover a full year.
How Tampa's rate compares with the U.S. and cities its size
Tampa's rate isn't only below the national figure; it's well under the rate for American cities of a similar size. The FBI's Table 16 groups cities by population, and Tampa, with 421,313 residents in the Bureau's 2025 count, falls in the 250,000-to-499,999 group.
| Area | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Tampa | 167.4 | 106.1 |
| United States | 231.0 | 193.6 |
| U.S. cities of 250,000–499,999 | 371.4 | 304.5 |
Tampa: our calculation from Table 8. United States: Crime in the United States 2025, Table 1. Cities of 250,000–499,999: Table 16 of the 2024 edition (50 reporting cities) and the 2025 edition (51), Tampa among them (FBI downloads).
In 2025 Tampa's rate was 45.2% below the national rate and about a third of its population group's. The FBI itself advises weighing local factors beyond the crime counts before comparing places, so treat this as context rather than a ranking.
Homes are still the biggest share
NIBRS reports also record the kind of place where each burglary happened. In the FBI's Crime Data Explorer, a residence or home is the location for most Tampa burglaries in every year since 2022:
| Year | At a residence | All locations | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 459 | 759 | 60.5% |
| 2023 | 439 | 723 | 60.7% |
| 2024 | 417 | 684 | 61.0% |
| 2025 | 245 | 437 | 56.1% |
FBI Crime Data Explorer, NIBRS data for the Tampa Police Department (ORI FL0290200), burglary/breaking and entering by location type; the share is our calculation. Table 8 converts NIBRS reports to the FBI's older summary format once a year, while the Explorer tallies them directly and is refreshed as agencies update their data, so the totals don't match exactly: 759 against 756 for 2022, but 723 against 783 for 2023.
Burglaries at a residence fell 41.2% in 2025, from 417 to 245, faster than the citywide total, so homes made up a smaller share than in the three years before. After homes, the most common place in 2025 was a commercial or office building, with 37.
Forced, unforced or attempted
The FBI defines burglary as the unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or theft, and force isn't required. Every burglary goes into one of three groups: forcible entry, unlawful entry where no force is used, or attempted forcible entry. Tampa's own split isn't published, so here are the national figures, the cities in Tampa's population group, and the federal victim survey's count for homes:
| Group and year | Forcible entry | No force | Attempted forcible entry |
|---|---|---|---|
| U.S., 2025 | 53.6%331,199 | 39.5%243,889 | 6.9%42,907 |
| U.S., 2024 | 55.3%415,469 | 38.0%285,473 | 6.7%49,981 |
| Cities of 250,000–499,999, 2025 | 55.8%29,296 | 37.3%19,562 | 6.9%3,604 |
| U.S. households, 2011 (victim survey) | 36.1%1,226,700 | 47.7%1,618,800 | 16.2%549,200 |
U.S. and city rows: FBI, Crime in the United States 2025, Table 15 (FBI downloads), covering 15,753 agencies that serve about 322 million people and sent at least six matching months of data for both years. It counts homes and businesses together.
Household row: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Household Burglary, 1994–2011, appendix table 1. Homes only, including burglaries never reported to police; forcible and no-force entries are completed ones, and BJS based each year in that report on a two-year rolling average. Percentages in every row are our calculation.
What each type means at a door
- Forcible entry: force got the burglar in. The victim survey's examples are breaking a window or slashing a screen. At a door, that's the job of the deadbolt, the strike and the frame around it.
- No force: nothing had to be forced. The survey's examples are an unlocked door or an open window, and a key in the wrong hands needs no force either. A deadbolt can't stop anyone if it's never thrown, but a lock that locks itself can, and a rekey retires keys you can't account for.
- Attempted forcible entry: someone tried force and didn't get in. The FBI still counts it as a burglary.
Two more details stand out. The no-force share rose from 38.0% in 2024 to 39.5% in 2025, because forcible entries fell faster (down 20.3%) than no-force entries (down 14.6%). And in the victim survey, which counts only homes, entry without force was the largest group in 2011, at 47.7% of household burglaries.
More home burglaries happen by day
The FBI's national estimates split burglaries at homes by time of day. Of the 661,800 burglaries it estimated for 2025, 353,222 were at a residence:
| Time | Burglaries | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Day | 188,672 | 53.4% |
| Night | 152,205 | 43.1% |
| Not known | 12,344 | 3.5% |
FBI, Crime in the United States 2025, Table 7 (FBI downloads); the shares are our calculation.
Daytime home burglaries outnumbered nighttime ones in every year of that table, 2021 through 2025. The FBI doesn't publish a day and night split for Tampa. The practical point: the deadbolt matters on a weekday afternoon as much as it does at bedtime.
The limits of police counts
- Burglaries nobody reported. In the federal victim survey, 40.7% of burglaries in 2024 were reported to police (42.2% in 2023), so police counts are a floor, not the whole total (BJS, Criminal Victimization, 2024, table 4).
- City limits only. These are Tampa Police Department counts, so they cover the City of Tampa and nothing outside it. Unincorporated Hillsborough County, including areas with a Tampa mailing address such as Town 'n' Country and Carrollwood, is patrolled by the county sheriff's office, and burglaries there aren't in these figures.
- Your own street. Neither the FBI nor BJS publishes neighborhood or ZIP code figures, so this guide has none. The Tampa Police Department's SAFE MAP site maps recent reports, but TPD says that data is for personal, informational purposes only and, because it keeps changing, can't be used for comparisons over time. We don't republish counts from it.
- This year. 2026 isn't over, and the Crime Data Explorer's 2026 monthly figures for Tampa are still partial, so 2026 isn't included.
A door-by-door checklist
Each item answers one of the findings above: entries made without force, entries made by force, keys you can't account for, and home burglaries that happen by day.
Front door
- Lock the deadbolt every time you leave, even for a short daytime errand.
- Turn the key and watch the bolt: it should slide all the way into the frame without a push or a lift. If it drags, the strike is usually out of line, and that calls for an adjustment, not for leaving it unlocked.
- Use a BHMA Grade 1 or 2 deadbolt with the strike screwed into the framing, so the door stands up better to force. Our high-security locks guide explains the grades.
- If locking up depends on everyone remembering, a keypad deadbolt with auto-lock takes memory out of it (see our smart locks guide).
Back and side doors
- Give them the same grade of deadbolt and the same strike work as the front door.
- On French doors, set the top and bottom bolts on the door that stays shut. The other door locks into it, so the pair is only as solid as those bolts.
- Check them before bed and before you head out. They're easy to leave unlocked after yard work or a trip to the trash cans.
Sliding glass doors
- Make sure the latch catches every time the door closes. A worn latch can look locked and still slide open; we can repair a worn slider latch or replace it.
- Add a backup that works even when the latch doesn't: a security bar or a dowel cut to length, laid in the bottom track.
Garage entry
- Keep the overhead door down when nobody's working in the garage. The federal victim survey counts illegal entry into a garage or shed as a household burglary.
- Put a deadbolt on the door from the garage into the house, and lock it the way you'd lock an outside door.
- If a remote, a keypad code or a house key may be in the wrong hands, change the opener's codes and rekey the house door.
Windows
- Latch ground-floor windows before you leave. The victim survey's examples of entry without force include an open window.
- Check that each latch really closes. Paint, swelling or a bent catch can leave a window that only looks locked.
Keys
- Rekey after you move in, after a key goes missing, or when someone who had one moves out. Not sure whether to rekey or buy new locks? See rekey or replace your locks.
- Retire the hidden spare in the planter or under the mat. Hand it to someone you trust, or switch to a keypad code.
Help from the city: the Tampa Police Department's crime prevention page has a Vacation Watch online form and contacts for a neighborhood affairs liaison in each patrol district, and its Neighborhood Watch page links to a list of the city's watch groups. For more ways to harden a house, from lighting to cameras, see our home security tips for Tampa homeowners.
After a break-in: doors first, then keys
- If anyone could still be inside, get out and call 911.
- Report it to police even if little was taken. The FBI figures in this guide are built from those reports.
- Photograph the damage before anything gets repaired.
- If keys, a garage remote or a bag with keys in it went missing, rekey every lock those keys open, so the old ones stop working. If the door was forced, have the lock and the strike checked and replace whatever was damaged. Our guide to rekeying versus replacing walks through the choice.
- Delete the old smart lock and keypad codes and set new ones.
We rekey and change locks, upgrade deadbolts, install authorized Mul-T-Lock, Medeco and Schlage high-security hardware, and set up keypad and smart locks; see all our locksmith services in Tampa. The Locksmith Shop is licensed and insured, and our counter at 4556 S Manhattan Ave takes walk-ins Monday through Saturday, 8am to 8pm. We're closed Sunday.
How we pulled these numbers
We pulled every figure and checked it against its source file on October 24, 2026. The sources:
- Tampa counts and population, 2019: FBI, Crime in the United States 2019, Table 8, Florida.
- Tampa counts and population, 2020 and 2022–2025: Table 8 in each year's “Offenses Known to Law Enforcement” file on the Crime Data Explorer's Documents & Downloads page. The 2021 file's Table 8 has no Florida cities, and its methodology describes the switch to NIBRS-only collection and the limited Florida data.
- U.S. rates and the 2025 national change: Crime in the United States 2025, Tables 1 and 1A, in the “CIUS Estimations” file. Agencies can update past years, so older editions may show slightly different U.S. rates.
- Cities of 250,000–499,999: Table 16 of the 2024 and 2025 editions.
- Entry type and time of day: Tables 15 and 7 of the 2025 edition.
- Location type in Tampa: the Crime Data Explorer's agency view (Tampa Police Department, ORI FL0290200; burglary/breaking and entering; location type), one year at a time; here's the raw 2025 data. The Explorer's data was last refreshed October 15, 2026.
- Victim survey: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Criminal Victimization, 2024 (table 4) and Household Burglary, 1994–2011 (appendix table 1).
Every Tampa figure counts burglaries reported to the Tampa Police Department inside the city limits, so burglaries never reported to police, and those in unincorporated Hillsborough County, aren't in them. Rates per 100,000 and the percentages are our own arithmetic from the published counts, rounded to one decimal place. We left out the Explorer's monthly Tampa reports for 2021, since several fall months show a fraction of the usual count, and anything below the city level.
Download the data as a CSV: every statistic in this guide, one per row, with its source table, a link and the date we pulled it. Neighborhood associations, reporters and anyone else are welcome to use it; a link back to this page helps readers find the method.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many burglaries did Tampa police record in 2025?
447, according to Table 8 of the FBI's Crime in the United States 2025. That's down from 684 in 2024 and 1,022 in 2019, and it works out to 106.1 burglaries per 100,000 residents.
Are break-ins rising or falling in Tampa?
Falling. Tampa's count went from 1,022 in 2019 to 447 in 2025, a 56.3% decline, and the rate per 100,000 residents went from 255.2 to 106.1. It wasn't a straight line: 2023 (783) came in a little above 2022 (756). The FBI didn't publish a 2021 figure for Tampa.
Do most burglars force their way in?
A small majority do. In the FBI's 2025 entry-type table, 53.6% of burglaries involved forcible entry, 39.5% involved no force and 6.9% were attempted forcible entries (Table 15, homes and businesses together). In the federal victim survey, which counts homes only, entry without force was the largest group in 2011, at 47.7%.
Are home burglaries more common during the day?
Nationally, yes. The FBI estimates 188,672 daytime and 152,205 nighttime residential burglaries for 2025, plus 12,344 at an unknown time (Table 7). The FBI doesn't publish a day and night split for Tampa.
Why is there no 2021 burglary number for Tampa?
On January 1, 2021, the FBI began taking crime data only through its National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). It received limited 2021 data from Florida, and its 2021 table of city figures lists no Florida cities. Tampa's series picks up again in 2022.
Should I rekey my locks after a break-in?
If keys, a garage remote or a bag with keys in it went missing, yes. Rekeying makes the old keys useless and keeps your hardware on the door. If the door was forced, have the lock and the strike checked too, and replace anything damaged. We rekey, change locks and upgrade deadbolts; call (813) 832-4777 or walk in at 4556 S Manhattan Ave, Monday through Saturday, 8am to 8pm.
Questions About a Door on This List?
Bring a photo of the lock and the door edge to the counter, or call (813) 832-4777 for a free quote on a rekey, a sturdier deadbolt or a keypad lock.
Walk-ins welcome at 4556 S Manhattan Ave, Tampa, FL 33611Monday–Saturday 8am–8pm · Closed Sunday · Insured & bonded