How Many Murders Have There Been in Toronto in 2025?

Toron­to record­ed 38 mur­ders by late Decem­ber 2025 — reflect­ing a sig­nif­i­cant 54.8% decrease com­pared to the same point in 2024.

Accord­ing to the Toron­to Police Ser­vice (TPS), sev­er­al oth­er major crime indi­ca­tors are trend­ing down­ward this year in Canada’s largest city by pop­u­la­tion, includ­ing auto thefts (down 25.5%), rob­beries (down 18.7%) and break-ins (down 11.3%).

At Pro­tec­tion Plus, we reviewed the most recent TPS data to break down where homi­cides are occur­ring, which weapons are most com­mon­ly involved, and how this year com­pares to pre­vi­ous years.

In this arti­cle, we not only answer how many mur­ders there have been in Toron­to in 2025, but also high­light the key safe­ty pat­terns shap­ing the city today — and what they may sig­nal going for­ward.

1. There have been 38 murders in Toronto so far in 2025 — on pace for a 20-year low

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With less than two weeks left in 2025, Toron­to police have record­ed 38 homi­cides for the year, accord­ing to a Dec. 21 update. With a stag­ger­ing 84 mur­ders report­ed by the same time the pre­vi­ous year and 85 homi­cides by year-end, the decline in 2025 indi­cates an encour­ag­ing trend for Toron­to homi­cide sta­tis­tics.

Based on homi­cide trends over the past few years, the city of Toron­to is on pace to improve on Novem­ber pro­jec­tions, which esti­mat­ed 40 to 45 total homi­cides by year-end 2025 — which would still rep­re­sent the low­est annu­al total in at least two decades.

• By the same point in 2023 there had been 69 homi­cides and 73 by year-end.
• In 2022, the pace of homi­cides was rel­a­tive­ly sim­i­lar, with 70 record­ed by this time of year and 71 by the end of the year.
• How­ev­er, in 2021 there was a spike sim­i­lar to 2024 — 81 mur­ders by late Decem­ber and 85 by the end of the year.
• Over the past two decades, 2018 had the high­est num­ber of record­ed homi­cides with 98 mur­ders, and 2011 had the fewest with 51.

For broad­er con­text, Toron­to also record­ed the high­est num­ber of homi­cide vic­tims among Cana­di­an Cen­sus Met­ro­pol­i­tan Areas (CMAs) in 2024, with 133 deaths — ahead of Mon­tre­al (58), Win­nipeg (43), Van­cou­ver (37), Edmon­ton (36), Ottawa (32), and Cal­gary (23).

How­ev­er, CMAs include sur­round­ing munic­i­pal­i­ties, and Toronto’s pop­u­la­tion size means raw totals do not reflect per-capi­ta risk. Sta­tis­tics Cana­da has not yet released nation­wide homi­cide totals for 2025.

Sources: TPS, Stat­Can.

2. Nearly every year, at least half of Toronto homicides are shootings

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As of late Decem­ber 2025, guns have been used in 50% of Toron­to homi­cides, while 31.6% of homi­cides have been stab­bings and 18.4% involved oth­er meth­ods.

Year-end totals for 2024 showed a rel­a­tive­ly con­sis­tent trend in gun vio­lence. Shoot­ings com­prised 50.6% of homi­cides, while stab­bings rep­re­sent­ed a small­er per­cent­age of 28.2% and homi­cides using oth­er meth­ods com­prised a larg­er 21.2% of the total.

• Over the past five years, 2023 was the only year when less than half of homi­cides were shoot­ings. That year, shoot­ings rep­re­sent­ed just 39.7% of the total while stab­bings com­prised 32.9% and mur­ders using oth­er weapons reached 27.4%.
• Anoth­er out­lier was 2022, when 62% of homi­cides were shoot­ings, 23.9% were stab­bings, and just 14.1% involved oth­er weapons.

Source: TPS.

3. Toronto has seen 19 shooting deaths in 2025 — a nearly 56% drop year over year

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As of late Decem­ber, 19 peo­ple had been killed with a gun in Toron­to in 2025 — the low­est total for that peri­od in the past five years.

The Ontario city saw 43 gun deaths dur­ing the same peri­od last year, which was also the year-end total. This 55.8% decrease in the year-to-date close­ly mir­rors the 54.8% drop in record­ed mur­ders over­all, and reflects the over­all improve­ments in Toron­to crime sta­tis­tics.

• In 2023, the num­ber of gun deaths was also rel­a­tive­ly low, with 27 gun deaths by late Decem­ber and 29 by year-end.
• By late Decem­ber 2022 there had been 43 shoot­ing deaths, match­ing 2024 lev­els for the same time peri­od, and by the end of that year there were 44 gun deaths.
• In 2021, Toron­to police record­ed a five-year high in gun deaths with 46 total and 43 record­ed by year-to-date.

Source: TPS.

4. Stabbing deaths have fallen nearly 47.8% so far in 2025, compared to the same time in 2024

Along with a plum­met­ing num­ber of shoot­ing deaths and total homi­cides in Toron­to in 2025, by late Decem­ber the city had seen 12 stab­bing deaths. By the same point in 2024, Toron­to had record­ed 23 stab­bing deaths, with a year-end total of 24.

• For com­par­i­son, by the same time in 2023 there had been 23 stab­bing deaths, with 24 by the end of year — match­ing the 2024 total.
• In 2022 there were 17 stab­bing deaths over the same peri­od, which was also the year-end total.
• In 2021, there were 15 stab­bing deaths by the same point, and 16 by year-end — a five-year low that 2025 is on pace to improve upon.

Source: TPS.

5. In 2025, the number of homicides involving other weapons has dropped more than 61% year over year

By late Decem­ber 2025, there had been sev­en homi­cides in Toron­to where nei­ther a firearm nor stab­bing weapon was used. How­ev­er, by the same point last year there had been 18 — well over twice as many. By the end of 2024, the city record­ed 18 mur­ders by oth­er meth­ods.

In 2025, Toron­to is on pace for a five-year low. Cur­rent­ly that posi­tion is held by 2021, when a total of 10 homi­cides involv­ing oth­er meth­ods were report­ed.

Source: TPS.

6. Shootings have fallen by nearly one-third in 2025

There have been 91 shoot­ings in Toron­to in 2025 as of late Decem­ber, a 32.6% decrease year over year from 135 in 2024. There have also been 166 firearm dis­charges, a 47.6% decrease from 317 by the same point last year.

By late Decem­ber 2025, a total of 117 peo­ple had been killed or injured in shoot­ings and firearm dis­charges, a 26.9% decrease, includ­ing 19 deaths (down 55.8%) and 98 injuries (down 16.2%).

Source: TPS.

7. As of September, 13 young people had been charged in connection with homicide investigations in Toronto in 2025

Some indi­vid­u­als fac­ing mur­der charges were as young as 12, 13, and 14 years old. Mur­ders and vio­lent crimes in the Toron­to met­ro­pol­i­tan area linked to minors in 2025 include:

• A 12-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man were charged with sec­ond-degree mur­der after a series of vio­lent rob­beries in down­town Toron­to tar­get­ing vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple.
• A 16-year-old, who was 15 at the time, has been charged with first-degree mur­der in the death of an 8‑year-old boy who was killed by a stray bul­let while in bed.
• Sus­pects aged 14 to 17 were linked to the fatal stab­bing of a 14-year-old boy at a McDonald’s, the mur­der of an 80-year-old woman in Pick­er­ing, and mul­ti­ple shoot­ings in Scar­bor­ough and Markham.

Law enforce­ment offi­cers point to broad­er social issues affect­ing fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties, and Police Chief Myron Demkiw told the Toron­to Sun it was “incred­i­bly con­cern­ing” that there has been a dra­mat­ic rise in young peo­ple arrest­ed with ille­gal firearms over the past two years.

Sources: Toron­to Sun.

8. Nearly 15% of Toronto shootings in the first half of 2025, and 13% in 2024, were linked to a tow truck turf war

Accord­ing to a Glob­al News report from June 2025, 63 shoot­ings in 2024, account­ing for 13% of the year­ly total, were con­nect­ed to vio­lent ter­ri­to­ry dis­putes over the Toron­to area tow truck indus­try. That per­cent­age increased in 2025, with 15% of shoot­ings as of June linked to these dis­putes.

This includes a mass shoot­ing at a Toron­to pub in March 2025, where 12 peo­ple were shot but there were no fatal­i­ties.

An inves­ti­ga­tion into these ter­ri­to­ry dis­putes led to 20 arrests and 111 charges, includ­ing 52 counts of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit mur­der.

Source: Glob­al News, Nation­al Post.

9. As of late December, the TPS has 3 active homicide investigations from 2025 — the lowest in recent years

Toron­to police report 17 active inves­ti­ga­tions remain­ing from 2024, five still open from 2023, 11 from 2022, 22 from 2021, and 17 from 2020.

Active 2025 homi­cide inves­ti­ga­tions include:

• A 30-year-old man, shot on July 22 near Osler Street and Dav­en­port Road.
• A 42-year-old man, shot on May 19 in the West­on Road and Albion Road area.
• A 23-year-old man, shot on March 26 near Mar­tin Grove Road and Albion Road.

Provin­cial­ly, Ontario has also main­tained a low­er homi­cide rate than the nation­al aver­age. From 2020 to 2024, the province aver­aged 1.8 mur­ders per 100,000 peo­ple — below the nation­al aver­age of 2.05 — rein­forc­ing that Toronto’s 2025 decline aligns with longer-term trends.

Sources: TPS, Stat­Can.

10. No single Toronto neighbourhood leads in homicides in 2025, but 5 neighbourhoods have reported 2 murders each

Annex, Ben­dale-Glen Andrew, North Riverdale, Welling­ton Place, and West Hill had all report­ed two mur­ders each by late Decem­ber 2025. Ben­dale Glen-Andrew and West Hill had also report­ed two mur­ders by this point in 2024, while Welling­ton Place had record­ed one.

How­ev­er, the Toron­to crime rate by neigh­bour­hood is decreas­ing. By this point last year West­on had seen five mur­ders, which was also its year-end total, but there have been no homi­cides record­ed in that neigh­bour­hood in 2025.

• In 2023, Moss Park led the city with sev­en mur­ders, but the neigh­bour­hood has seen just one mur­der so far in 2025.
• In 2022, five Toron­to neigh­bour­hoods had three mur­ders each — Alder­wood, Glen­field-Jane Heights, Lans­ing-West­gate, Moss Park, and York Uni­ver­si­ty Heights. So far in 2025, of these neigh­bour­hoods only Moss Park has had one homi­cide.
• 2021 saw six homi­cides in York Uni­ver­si­ty Heights, and there have been no record­ed mur­ders in the neigh­bour­hood so far in 2025.

Here is the num­ber of mur­ders in Toron­to by neigh­bour­hood as of Dec. 21, 2025:

• Agin­court South-Malvern West: 1 shoot­ing
• Annex: 1 stab­bing, 1 oth­er
• Ben­dale-Glen Andrew: 1 shoot­ing, 1 oth­er
• Brookhaven-Ames­bury: 1 shoot­ing
• Dan­forth: 1 stab­bing
• Engle­mount-Lawrence: 1 shoot­ing
• Fort York-Lib­er­ty Vil­lage: 1 oth­er
• Green­wood-Coxwell: 1 stab­bing
• Har­bourfront-City­Place: 1 shoot­ing
• Hen­ry Park: 1 stab­bing
• High Park North: 1 stab­bing
• Ion­view: 1 stab­bing
• Isling­ton: 1 shoot­ing
• Kennedy Park: 1 stab­bing
• Mim­ico-Queensway: 1 oth­er
• Moss Park: 1 shoot­ing
• Mount Den­nis: 1 shoot­ing
• Mount Olive-Sil­ver­stone-Jamestown: 1 shoot­ing
• North Riverdale: 2 shoot­ings
• Oak­dale-Bev­er­ley Heights: 1 stab­bing
• Pel­mo Park-Hum­ber­lea: 1 shoot­ing
• Scar­bor­ough Vil­lage: 1 shoot­ing
• Stonegate-Queensway: 1 stab­bing
• Tam O’Shanter-Sullivan: 1 shoot­ing
• Uni­ver­si­ty: 1 oth­er
• Welling­ton Place: 2 shoot­ings
• West Hill: 1 shoot­ing, 1 stab­bing
• West Hum­ber-Clairville: 1 oth­er
• West­on-Pel­ham Park: 1 shoot­ing
• Wood­bine-Lums­den: 1 stab­bing
• Wych­wood: 1 stab­bing
• Yonge-Bay Cor­ri­dor: 1 oth­er
• York­dale-Glen Park: 1 shoot­ing

Source: TPS.

How Many Murders Have There Been in Toronto in 2025?

Five key take­aways:

1. With 38 mur­ders as of Dec. 21, homi­cides in Toron­to have dropped sig­nif­i­cant­ly in 2025, with a near­ly 55% decrease from 2024.
2. Both shoot­ing and stab­bing deaths are down sharply in this major city, con­tribut­ing to a poten­tial 20-year low.
3. Areas pre­vi­ous­ly expe­ri­enc­ing high vio­lence have seen declines, while some neigh­bour­hoods are report­ing mul­ti­ple homi­cides.
4. Police note youth involve­ment remains a major con­cern.
5. Decreas­es in relat­ed crimes — includ­ing car thefts, rob­beries, and break-ins — sug­gest broad­er reduc­tions in vio­lent and prop­er­ty crime.

How Protection Plus Can Help Protect Your Safety

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