Murder rate Europe by country 2021

In Europe, the Baltic countries of Latvia and Lithuania had the highest homicide rates in 2021. Of these, Latvia had the highest rate, reaching almost 5.2 intentional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. Meanwhile, the lowest homicide rate was found in Malta, amounting to only 0.39 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

The most dangerous country worldwide

El Salvador is the world's most dangerous country to live in in terms of murder rate. The Latin American country had a homicide rate of 52 per 100,000 inhabitants. Seven of the 10 countries with the highest murder rates worldwide are located in Latin America and the Caribbean. Whereas Tijuana in Mexico was listed as the city with the highest murder rate worldwide, Zamora in Mexico was the city with the highest homicide rate in Latin America, so the numbers vary from source to source. Nevertheless, several Mexican cities rank among the deadliest in the world when it comes to intentional homicides.

Violent conflicts worldwide

Notably, these figures do not include deaths that resulted from war or a violent conflict. While there is a persistent number of conflicts worldwide, resulting casualties are not considered murders. Partially due to this reason, homicide rates in Latin America are higher than those in countries such as Afghanistan or Ethiopia. A different definition of murder in these circumstances could change the rate significantly.

Homicide rate in Europe in 2021, by country (per 100,000 inhabitants)

Characteristic	Murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants
Latvia	5.18
Lithuania	2.5
Türkiye	2.35
Montenegro	2.26
Albania	2.16
Finland	1.7
Cyprus	1.56
Estonia	1.35
Sweden	1.09
France	1.08
Serbia	1.06
Slovakia	1.01
Romania	0.99
Greece	0.83
Croatia	0.82
Portugal	0.8
Germany	0.76
Denmark	0.72
Netherlands	0.72
Poland	0.7
Hungary	0.69
Austria	0.66
Spain	0.61
Iceland	0.54
Norway	0.54
Italy	0.51
Switzerland	0.48
Luxembourg	0.47
Ireland	0.44
Slovenia	0.43
Malta	0.39

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Release date

May 2023

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Region

Europe

Survey time period

2021

Supplementary notes

Numbers are unavailable for the United Kingdom, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and Liechtenstein .

The figures from 2008 onwards for police-recorded offences are based on the joint Eurostat-UNODC data collection. It is available at country level for European Union Member States, EFTA countries, EU Candidate countries, and EU Potential Candidates.

Intentional Homicide (country and largest city) Definition: Unlawful death inflicted upon a person with the intent to cause death or serious injury. Data on intentional homicide should also include murder, honor killing, serious assault leading to death, death as a result of terrorist activities, dowry-related killings, femicide, infanticide, voluntary manslaughter, extrajudicial killings, killings caused by excessive use of force by law enforcement/state officials. It should exclude death due to legal interventions, justifiable homicide in self-defense, attempted intentional homicide, homicide without the element of intent is non-intentional homicide, non-negligent or involuntary manslaughter, assisting suicide or instigating suicide, illegal feticide, euthanasia.

The data refers to Section Recorded Offences by Offence Category of the Eurostat Database Statistic, online data code CRIM_OFF_CAT.

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