10 Toronto Homicide Statistics and Trends for 2026

Toron­to has seen a dra­mat­ic 54.8% drop in homi­cides year over year, along with an over­all 9.5% decline in major crime indi­ca­tors (MCIs) as of late Decem­ber 2025.

Accord­ing to Toron­to crime sta­tis­tics, vio­lent crime rates have decreased across the board, with assaults (-2.8%), rob­beries (-18.7%), and sex­u­al vio­la­tions (-10.5%) all down. Prop­er­ty crime has also most­ly declined, includ­ing a 25.5% decrease in auto thefts and an 11.3% decline in break and enter.

At Pro­tec­tion Plus, we’ve put togeth­er the most impor­tant Toron­to homi­cide sta­tis­tics to show where progress is being made, how the cur­rent num­bers com­pare to pre­vi­ous years, and what these trends reveal about safe­ty across the city.

1. There were roughly 85 murders in Toronto in 2024, but 2025 is on pace to decrease that number by more than half

As of Dec. 21, 2025, Toron­to had report­ed 38 mur­ders for the year, mark­ing a 54.8% decline from the 84 mur­ders record­ed by the Toron­to Police Ser­vice (TPS) dur­ing the same time peri­od in 2024. By year-end 2024, the city saw 85 homi­cides.

The 2025 homi­cides to date includ­ed:

• Sec­ond-degree mur­der: 16
• First-degree mur­der: 14
• Mur­der with intent: 3
• Dis­charge firearm with intent: 2
• Sud­den death — sus­pi­cious: 2
• Aggra­vat­ed assault: 1

For com­par­i­son, there were 73 homi­cides report­ed in 2023 and 71 in 2022. A sim­i­lar spike occurred in 2021, when 85 mur­ders were also report­ed.

Source: TPS

2. Toronto’s homicide rate is projected to fall to about 1.2 per 100,000 residents in 2025

Based on an esti­mat­ed 3.3 mil­lion res­i­dents, there is about 1.15 homi­cide per 100,000 pop­u­la­tion in Toron­to as of late Decem­ber 2025, with 38 record­ed homi­cides. That is less than half the mur­der rate observed at the same point in 2024, when 84 homi­cides trans­lat­ed to approx­i­mate­ly 2.55 per 100,000 res­i­dents.

The pro­ject­ed 2025 rate also comes in well below the 2.58 per 100,000 record­ed by the end of 2024, when Toron­to fin­ished the year with 85 homi­cides.

If the city ends 2025 with 38 total homi­cides, it would mark the low­est homi­cide rate Toron­to has seen in recent years, reflect­ing a sig­nif­i­cant year-over-year improve­ment in one of the most close­ly watched crime met­rics.

Source: TPS.

3. In 2025, shooting deaths fell by half and stabbing deaths dropped by one-third in Toronto

Image Source

Accord­ing to Toron­to homi­cide sta­tis­tics, by late Decem­ber 2025 the city had seen 19 shoot­ing deaths (55.8% decrease year-over-year), 12 stab­bing deaths (47.8% decrease), and 7 mur­ders with oth­er weapons (61.1% decrease).

The pre­vi­ous year-to-date, there had been 43 shoot­ing deaths, 23 stab­bing deaths, and 18 mur­ders with oth­er weapons. By the end of 2024, one more stab­bing death was record­ed to bring the total to 24.

While 2025 is on track to beat all of these lows, 2023 pre­vi­ous­ly saw the fewest shoot­ing deaths in recent years with 29, and 2021 saw the fewest stab­bing deaths and oth­er homi­cides with 16 and 10, respec­tive­ly.

Source: TPS.

4. Over the past 20 years, homicides have occurred throughout Toronto, with the city centre seeing the highest concentration

Image Source

The map above indi­cates the loca­tion of every homi­cide report­ed in the city of Toron­to for over more than two decades.

Col­ored mark­ers reveal mur­ders from 2021 to Decem­ber 2025, with yel­low mark­ers indi­cat­ing shoot­ing deaths, red mark­ers rep­re­sent­ing stab­bing deaths, and blue mark­ers indi­cat­ing oth­er mur­ders. Grey mark­ers indi­cate old­er homi­cides report­ed from 2004 through 2020.

Source: Toron­to Police Pub­lic Safe­ty Data Por­tal.

5. By late December, 5 Toronto neighbourhoods had recorded 2 murders each in 2025

By late Decem­ber 2025, five Toron­to neigh­bour­hoods had two police-report­ed homi­cides each — Annex, Ben­dale-Glen Andrew, North Riverdale, Welling­ton Place, and West Hill.

At the same point last year, five homi­cides had been record­ed in West­on, more than any oth­er neigh­bour­hood. So far in 2025, West­on has record­ed zero homi­cides for the year.

Toron­to homi­cide sta­tis­tics reveal that in 2023 Moss Park had the most mur­ders with sev­en, while 2022 saw anoth­er five-way tie among Alder­wood, Glen­field-Jane Heights, Lans­ing-West­gate, Moss Park, and York Uni­ver­si­ty Heights with three homi­cides each. In 2021, York Uni­ver­si­ty Heights led with six homi­cides.

Here’s the neigh­bour­hood break­down of the 38 homi­cides report­ed in Toron­to as of Decem­ber 2025:

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

To read where all 85 homi­cides occurred in 2024, see the Toron­to crime rate by neigh­bour­hood.

Source: TPS.

6. Ontario as a whole did not reflect Toronto’s 2024 homicide spike — the provincial total increased by only 10

Accord­ing to Sta­tis­tics Cana­da, Ontario record­ed 282 homi­cides in 2024 — an increase of 10 over the 272 homi­cides record­ed in 2023. How­ev­er, the 2024 total was still low­er than in 2022 (293) and 2021 (284).

Like­wise, the Ontario mur­der rate in 2024 was 1.75 per 100,000 pop­u­la­tion, only slight­ly high­er than 1.74 the pre­vi­ous year and low­er than 2022 (1.94) and 2021 (1.91). This was also low­er than the nation­al mur­der rate, as Cana­da saw a total of 788 homi­cides in 2024 (the fewest since 2020) with a mur­der rate of 1.91 per 100,000 pop­u­la­tion.

How­ev­er, the 2024 Ontario homi­cide rate did show a 52.67% increase com­pared to 2014, while the nation­wide homi­cide rate increased 28.82% over the decade. Data for 2025 is not yet avail­able.

Here’s how the total num­ber of homi­cides in Ontario com­pared to oth­er provinces in 2024, as well as the homi­cide rate per 100,000 pop­u­la­tion:

• Alber­ta: 98 (2.00)
• British Colum­bia: 93 (1.63)
• Man­i­to­ba: 94 (6.29)
• New Brunswick: 18 (2.11)
• New­found­land and Labrador: 4 (0.73)
• Nova Sco­tia: 25 (2.32)
• Nunavut: 4 (9.72)
• Ontario: 282 (1.75)
• Prince Edward Island: 2 (1.12)
• Que­bec: 97 (1.07)
• Saskatchewan: 65 (5.24)
• North­west Ter­ri­to­ries: 6 (13.41)
• Yukon: 0 (0.00)

Source: Stat­Can.

7. Among Canadian CMAs, Toronto consistently ranks first for homicides, with 133 in 2024

Each year, the Toron­to cen­sus met­ro­pol­i­tan area (CMA) records more homi­cides than any oth­er CMA. How­ev­er, Toron­to is the most pop­u­lous Cana­di­an CMA with over 7.1 mil­lion peo­ple, fol­lowed by Mon­tre­al (4.6 mil­lion) and Van­cou­ver (3.1 mil­lion).

Before peak­ing at 133 homi­cides in 2024, the Toron­to CMA record­ed 119 in 2023, 131 in 2022, 118 in 2021, and 103 in 2020 — vast­ly sur­pass­ing all oth­er CMAs each year.

The table below shows the 10 CMAs with the most homi­cides in 2024, as well as their esti­mat­ed pop­u­la­tions and homi­cide rates per 100,000 pop­u­la­tion:

An addi­tion­al 270 mur­ders were record­ed in non-cen­sus met­ro­pol­i­tan areas, the fewest since 2020.

• Despite hav­ing the high­est total num­ber of homi­cides, Toronto’s 2024 rate (1.9) ranks sev­enth among these CMAs.
• Win­nipeg has the high­est homi­cide rate among these CMAs at near­ly 4.6 per 100,000.
• Van­cou­ver and Mon­tre­al have the low­est, both around 1.2 per 100,000.

Source: Stat­Can.

8. Homicides tend to spike around the hottest months and September, while massive spikes can occur around the holidays

While trends since 2020 are incon­sis­tent, there appears to be an annu­al spike around Sep­tem­ber and between June and July, with some­times anoth­er dur­ing or just after the hol­i­days, either in Decem­ber (the high­est month for mur­ders in 2023, with 11) or Jan­u­ary (the high­est month for 2022, with 10).

As of Decem­ber 2025, July and Sep­tem­ber were the heav­i­est months for homi­cide in Toron­to, with six mur­ders report­ed in each month. Five homi­cides were report­ed in June, while four were report­ed in both March and August. Three were report­ed in both Feb­ru­ary and April, two were record­ed in both Octo­ber and Novem­ber, and one was report­ed in Jan­u­ary, May, and Decem­ber.

In 2024, June and Sep­tem­ber saw the high­est spikes, with 11 and 10 homi­cides, respec­tive­ly. The fewest homi­cides year-over-year occurred in May, July, and August, with six each. How­ev­er, the low­est months for report­ed homi­cides by year-end were Novem­ber with 4 and Decem­ber with 5 mur­ders.

Source: TPS.

9. As of December, the TPS had 3 current homicide investigations for 2025 — the lowest for any recent year

For com­par­i­son, Toron­to Police Ser­vice Homi­cide has 17 cur­rent inves­ti­ga­tions from 2024, five from 2023, 11 from 2022, 22 from 2021, and 17 from 2020.

Cur­rent homi­cide inves­ti­ga­tions for 2025 include:

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

Source: TPS.

10. TPS cleared 84% of murder cases in 2022 — the highest clearance rate in 20 years

Of the 67 mur­ders Toron­to police inves­ti­gat­ed in 2022, they made 56 arrests by the end of that year.

Forty-two of these mur­ders were fatal shoot­ings, which are espe­cial­ly dif­fi­cult to solve, but the depart­ment was able to clear 80% of them.

A suc­cess rate this high is very rare, and an inspec­tor with the depart­ment cred­it­ed video sur­veil­lance, foren­sic inves­ti­ga­tors, anony­mous tips, and inves­tiga­tive genet­ic geneal­o­gy.

Source: Glob­al News.

What These Toronto Homicide Statistics Reveal

Data paints a cau­tious­ly opti­mistic pic­ture for com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty in Toron­to in 2026 and beyond. While fluc­tu­a­tions in Toron­to homi­cide sta­tis­tics are nor­mal year to year, the trends below high­light mean­ing­ful progress toward a safer city:

• Major decline in vio­lent crime: The num­ber of mur­ders in Toron­to is pro­ject­ed to fall by more than 50% com­pared to 2024, mark­ing a strong improve­ment for this major Cana­di­an city.
• Record-low homi­cide rate: With a pro­ject­ed 1.2 homi­cides per 100,000 res­i­dents, Toronto’s 2025 homi­cide rate is on track to have the low­est mur­der rate in recent years.
• Improved inves­tiga­tive out­comes: Over the past few years, the Toron­to Police Ser­vice has seen the high­est clear­ance rate in two decades, thanks to mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy and strong com­mu­ni­ty coop­er­a­tion.
• Encour­ag­ing long-term trend: The over­all decline across most major crime indi­ca­tors sig­nals a poten­tial­ly sus­tained pos­i­tive shift in Toron­to crime sta­tis­tics.

How Protection Plus Can Help

These Toron­to homi­cide sta­tis­tics high­light the need for strong home secu­ri­ty as well as busi­ness secu­ri­ty. Since 1994, Pro­tec­tion Plus has helped Cana­di­ans safe­guard what mat­ters most. With over 25,000 homes and busi­ness­es served, our Toron­to-based experts design and install tai­lored sys­tems — from smart alarms to access con­trol and video sur­veil­lance.

Whether you’re secur­ing a home, rental, or com­mer­cial prop­er­ty, our 30+ years of local expe­ri­ence can help you feel safer and more con­fi­dent. Con­tact us today for a free, no-oblig­a­tion quote and see how Pro­tec­tion Plus can strength­en your peace of mind.