Data
Australian Property Theft Statistics, 2025
Victim counts and population-adjusted rates for theft, motor vehicle theft and unlawful entry, for Australia and every state and territory — sourced directly from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and recalculated per 100,000 people so jurisdictions can be compared fairly.
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Recorded Crime – Victims, 2025, released 3 September 2026.
Other theft
581,209
-2.4% on 2024
2,105.7 per 100,000 people
Motor vehicle theft
66,625
+1.6% on 2024
241.4 per 100,000 people
Unlawful entry with intent
160,979
2023 — +6.4% on 2022
No national 2025 figure published (see note below)
Nationally, police recorded 581,209 victims of other theft in 2025, down 2.4% on the year before and below the 2024 figure of 595,660. Motor vehicle theft rose 1.6% to 66,625.
How the states and territories compare
Ranked by other-theft rate per 100,000 people. Rates matter more than raw counts here: the largest states record the most offences simply because more people live in them.
| Jurisdiction | Other theft | per 100k | Vehicle theft | per 100k | Unlawful entry |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Queensland | 148,845 | 2,625 | 17,214 | 303.6 | 40,088 |
| Victoria | 177,555 | 2,513.5 | 24,929 | 352.9 | 42,692 |
| Northern Territory | 6,593 | 2,478.8 | 1,319 | 495.9 | 6,640 (2023) |
| Western Australia | 71,525 | 2,349 | 4,913 | 161.3 | 13,312 |
| South Australia | 42,392 | 2,229.2 | 3,414 | 179.5 | 8,789 |
| Tasmania | 10,635 | 1,840.5 | 1,336 | 231.2 | 2,731 |
| Australian Capital Territory | 6,852 | 1,413.7 | 821 | 169.4 | 1,405 |
| New South Wales | 116,808 | 1,360.2 | 12,689 | 147.8 | 30,706 |
What the numbers show
Population changes the ranking completely
New South Wales, the most populous state, records the 3rd-highest number of theft victims — 116,808 in 2025. Adjusted for population, though, it ranks 8 of 8, at 1,360.2 per 100,000 against a national 2,105.7. Raw counts describe how many people live somewhere at least as much as they describe crime.
Queensland has the highest theft rate in the country
At 2,625 other-theft victims per 100,000, Queensland sits well above the national rate of 2,105.7. Northern Territory has the highest motor vehicle theft rate, at 495.9 per 100,000. New South Wales records the lowest theft rate at 1,360.2.
Victoria kept rising as the national count fell
Victoria's other-theft count rose 4.6% in 2025, to 177,555, while the national figure fell 2.4%. Only Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory recorded more other-theft victims than the year before.
Statistics by state and territory
Method and sources
Victim counts come from Australian Bureau of Statistics, Recorded Crime – Victims, 2025, the national statistical standard for recorded crime. Reference period is the 2025 calendar year.
Rates per 100,000 are our own calculation, not an ABS figure — the ABS does not publish victimisation rates for property offences. We divide each year's victim count by that same year's Estimated Resident Population from ABS National, state and territory population, ERP at 30 June 2025. Using a single year's population across a multi-year trend would distort it, since Australia's population grew about 14% over the last decade.
The ABS randomly adjusts individual cells to protect confidentiality, so state and territory figures do not sum exactly to the national totals. We report both as published rather than reconciling them.
No national unlawful entry figure has been published since 2023, because Northern Territory data for that offence was unavailable. ABS also advises that Northern Territory data from 2024 onwards is not comparable with earlier periods. From the 2025 release the ABS labels unlawful entry with intent "burglary", following the 2023 offence classification; we keep the earlier name so the series reads continuously.
Counts include offences against organisations as well as individuals, so they are not a count of households affected. Reported crime also undercounts actual crime — theft in particular often goes unreported.
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