What is the crime rate in Belfast?

Police recorded 30,141 crimes in Belfast from May 2025 to April 2026, 87 per 1,000 residents, against an average of 82 across England, Wales and Northern Ireland (data.police.uk, excluding anti-social behaviour).

How does Belfast compare with the UK average for social housing?

The UK average is 17.5% of households. At 26.3%, Belfast is above the national average (+8.8 percentage points) and ranks 30th of 374 UK local authorities.

Living in Belfast

Q: How much social housing is there in Belfast?

26.3% of households in Belfast are social housing — 39,203 of 149,191 households rent from a council or housing association, according to the 2021–22 Census.

Police recorded 87 crimes per 1,000 residents in Belfast in the year to April 2026, above the average of 82 across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. 26.3% of households rent from the council or a housing association, above the UK average of 17.5%.

Belfast at a glance

Belfast compared with the rest of the country. Crime rates are per resident; see each section below for sources and periods.
Measure	Belfast	Comparison	Rank
Social housing (share of households)	26.3%	UK 17.5%	30th highest of 374
Recorded crime per 1,000 residents	87	E, W & NI 82	100th highest of 327
Anti-social behaviour per 1,000 residents	40	E, W & NI 16
Median broadband speed available	1,000 Mbit/s	Council median 1,000 Mbit/s

How much crime is there in Belfast?

From May 2025 to April 2026, police recorded 30,141 crimes in Belfast — 87 per 1,000 residents, above the average of 82 across England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the 100th highest of 327 councils. That is 5% fewer than in the previous 12 months. The most common offences were violence and sexual offences (43%), criminal damage and arson (13%) and shoplifting (11%). Police also logged 13,882 incidents of anti-social behaviour (40 per 1,000 residents).

Rates are per resident, so council areas with busy city centres, shopping or nightlife districts show higher rates than residents alone would suggest. See where crime is recorded on the map →

How much social housing is there in Belfast?

26.3%Social housing

39,203Social homes

149,191All households

Belfast ranks 30th of 374 UK local authorities by social-housing share. Of its 149,191 households, 39,203 are social homes (26.3%) — renting from the council or a housing association, according to the 2021–22 Census.

Belfast26.3%

UK average17.5%

How does Belfast compare with the UK average?

At +8.8 percentage points versus the UK average of 17.5%, Belfast sits above the national level.

Open the Belfast social housing map →

Schools, prices and more in Belfast

What the map's other datasets say about Belfast.

Broadband

Median available download speed is about 1,000 Mbit/s — what can be ordered, not what residents have bought (Ofcom Connected Nations).

Explore Belfast on the map

Areas with a similar share of social housing

“Social housing” means households renting from a council/local authority or a housing association, counted on census day (2021 in England, Wales & Northern Ireland; 2022 in Scotland). Local-authority figures are aggregated by this site from small-area data and may differ from official totals. Crime rates use Census 2021 population (NISRA mid-2021 estimates in Northern Ireland) and exclude crimes police.uk publishes without a location. All sources are open data under the Open Government Licence v3.0; see the methodology.
Sources: 2021–22 Census (social housing); data.police.uk, May 2025 to April 2026 (crime) · Page updated 27 September 2026 · Download the data (CSV, all 374 councils).