The finding
Why this split can be counted at all
Most published burglary statistics cannot tell you whether a business or a house was broken into. The FBI's national reporting has not carried a residential and non-residential split since 2019, and the incident-based data most agencies now submit does not expose premises type in the extracts they publish.
San Diego is an exception, and it is an accident of how SDPD codes its records, not a deliberate publication choice. The department's NIBRS offence extract carries the California Penal Code section charged. Under section 459 PC, burglary of a commercial premises and burglary of a residence are recorded as distinct code sections. Count the offences by that field and you have a direct, primary, municipal-source figure for commercial burglary in the City of San Diego — no estimation, no modelling, no apportionment.
We pulled every published year of that dataset, 2020 through 2025, counted the split, and set out the result below. The raw files and the scripts that produced these counts are kept alongside the page so the working can be checked, not taken on trust.
What this page will not do. Commercial burglary in San Diego is falling, and has fallen in every year of this dataset. We have an obvious commercial incentive to imply a crime wave and we are not going to, because the source we cite says the opposite and you can check it in about ninety seconds. The real argument for recorded evidence is further down this page, and it is about how few of these offences are ever solved.
Commercial and residential burglary in San Diego, 2020–2025
Offences recorded by San Diego Police Department and classified by the Penal Code section charged. These are counts of reported offences, not estimates.
−34.7%
DERIVEDComputed for this page from the SDPD counts in the table below (1,553 in 2020 to 1,014 in 2025). It is a change in REPORTED offences, not in offences committed, and reporting rates are not constant. SDPD does not publish this percentage itself.
| Year | Commercial burglary |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 1,553 |
| 2025 | 1,014 |
| Change 2024–25 | −14.3% |
San Diego Police Department, Police NIBRS Crime Offenses, City of San Diego Open Data Portal. Period: calendar years 2020–2025. Type: COUNT of reported offences; the percentage is derived. Retrieved: 2 September 2026.
Type: COUNT of offences reported to and recorded by SDPD. Not an estimate and not adjusted for unreported crime. Values in offences. Y-axis does not start at zero; the floor is labelled.
| Year | Commercial | Residential | Total burglary | Commercial share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 1,553 | 1,797 | 3,376 | 46.0% |
| 2021 | 1,580 | 1,886 | 3,475 | 45.5% |
| 2022 | 1,634 | 1,719 | 3,357 | 48.7% |
| 2023 | 1,289 | 1,598 | 2,888 | 44.6% |
| 2024 | 1,183 | 1,500 | 2,687 | 44.0% |
| 2025 | 1,014 | 1,103 | 2,118 | 47.9% |
Source: San Diego Police Department, Police NIBRS Crime Offenses, City of San Diego Open Data Portal — data.sandiego.gov/datasets/police-nibrs. Period: calendar years 2020–2025. Type: COUNT of reported offences. Retrieved: 2 September 2026. Between 1 and 26 offences a year carried both classifications or neither and are excluded from the split, which is why the commercial and residential columns do not always sum to the total.
Derived from the above: commercial burglary fell 34.7% between 2020 and 2025, and 14.3% between 2024 and 2025. Just under half of all burglary recorded in the city is of commercial premises.
Methodology
What these numbers do not tell you
Every figure above has limits, and a statistics page that hides them is not worth citing. These are the ones that materially change how the data should be read.
Reporting is voluntary
The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting programme is voluntary. Its 2025 national report was built from 17,075 agencies — 87.3% of enrolled agencies, covering 328,918,006 inhabitants, or 96.2% of the population. The 2024 report covered 16,675 agencies and 95.6%. Coverage is high but it is not complete.
Reported is not the same as occurred
Everything here counts crimes reported to police. The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that 30.5% of property crime and 40.7% of burglary were reported to police in 2024. That survey covers households rather than businesses, so it cannot tell you the commercial reporting rate — it only establishes that recorded figures understate the total.
The NIBRS transition broke 2021
When the FBI moved to incident-based reporting, participation collapsed in some states. California's 2021 data covers just 26.1% of the state population, and national coverage was 76.9%. California's 2021 figures are missing data, not a crime drop, and we have excluded that year from every California series on this page.
San Diego County Sheriff data is unusable
Crime in California 2024 records that the San Diego Sheriff's Department "transitioned to a new system and November and December counts are low". Its reported property crime falls steeply across recent years while the population it serves barely moves. That is a reporting artefact, so this page covers the City of San Diego only and publishes no Sheriff or unincorporated-county trend.
The FBI revises its own estimates
National figures are estimates and they move between editions. The 2024 burglary rate was published as 229.2 in the 2024 report and 231.0 in the 2025 report; the 2024 motor vehicle theft rate moved from 258.8 to 256.0. We cite the 2025 edition throughout and name it, because a number from this series is only meaningful with its edition attached.
Definitions and records change
SDPD began NIBRS reporting in January 2021, so the basis changes at the 2020 boundary. SDPD also states that its data "is dynamic as records are updated daily and may change or be deleted as police investigations proceed", and its own extract and the FBI's differ for the same year — 2,118 burglaries against 2,061 for 2025. We name the source for each figure, not blending them.
Where
Commercial burglary by San Diego neighbourhood
The same dataset carries the SDPD neighbourhood for each offence. Two districts sit clearly at the top for commercial burglary in 2025, and both of them are industrial and business-park territory, not retail high streets.
| Neighbourhood | Commercial burglary offences, 2025 |
|---|---|
| Sorrento Valley | 104 |
| Kearny Mesa | 96 |
| San Ysidro | 48 |
| Ridgeview / Webster | 42 |
| Miramar | 34 |
| Mission Valley East | 30 |
| East Village | 27 |
| La Jolla | 24 |
| Pacific Beach | 23 |
| Rancho Bernardo | 23 |
| Grantville | 21 |
| North Park | 21 |
Source: San Diego Police Department, Police NIBRS Crime Offenses — data.sandiego.gov/datasets/police-nibrs. Period: calendar year 2025. Type: COUNT. Retrieved: 2 September 2026. SDPD's own label for Kearny Mesa is spelled "Kearney Mesa" in the dataset.
By SDPD division the 2025 counts were Eastern 174, Northwestern 131, Central 125, Western 111, Northeastern 111, Northern 102, Southeastern 100, Mid-City 81 and Southern 79.
Read this as a count, not a risk rate. The dataset contains no denominator — nobody publishes how many commercial premises sit in each San Diego neighbourhood. A high count may reflect a dense concentration of business parks instead of a higher risk per building, and Sorrento Valley, Kearny Mesa and Miramar are among the densest commercial and industrial districts in the city. It is defensible to say these neighbourhoods recorded the most commercial burglaries. It is not defensible to call them the most dangerous places to run a business, and we are not saying that.
The two districts heading that list are ones we cover in their own right. What the building stock in the first actually looks like, and why a business park is a different security problem from a single occupier, is set out under commercial security in Sorrento Valley. The second is where our own office is, and commercial security in Kearny Mesa reads its 96 the same way. Both are among the San Diego districts we publish coverage for.
Context
The national and California picture
San Diego is not moving against the tide. Property crime is falling nationally and in California, and the FBI's own most recent report calls 2025 a twenty-year low for burglary.
| Year | Burglary | Larceny-theft | Motor vehicle theft |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | 731.7 | 2,203.6 | 399.4 |
| 2015 | 489.2 | 1,760.6 | 220.0 |
| 2020 | 306.0 | 1,379.3 | 243.8 |
| 2022 | 272.6 | 1,414.8 | 284.0 |
| 2023 | 253.2 | 1,364.4 | 321.9 |
| 2024 | 231.0 | 1,274.1 | 256.0 |
| 2025 | 193.6 | 1,144.1 | 197.0 |
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, UCR Summary of Reported Crimes in the Nation, 2025, released August 2026, Figure 2 — cde.ucr.cjis.gov. Period: calendar years 2006–2025, selected years shown. Type: ESTIMATE, adjusted for agencies that did not report. Retrieved: 2 September 2026.
United States, 2025
An estimated 5,245,768 property crime offences, a rate of 1,534.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, down from 1,761.1 in 2024. Property crime fell an estimated 12.4%, burglary 15.8% and motor vehicle theft 22.7%. ESTIMATE. Source: FBI, UCR Summary of Reported Crimes in the Nation, 2025, retrieved 2 September 2026.
California, 2024
The property crime rate fell 8.4%, from 2,272.7 in 2023 to 2,082.7 in 2024. The burglary rate fell 9.1%, from 339 to 308.2. COUNT of reported crimes. Source: California Department of Justice, Crime in California 2024, retrieved 2 September 2026.
California, 2025
109,981 burglary offences reported statewide, a rate of 279.5 per 100,000, down from 306.7 in 2024. Total property crime 716,301, a rate of 1,820.1. COUNT. Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, retrieved 2 September 2026.
Sources: FBI, UCR Summary of Reported Crimes in the Nation, 2025 — cde.ucr.cjis.gov. California Department of Justice, Crime in California 2024, released 1 July 2025 — data-openjustice.doj.ca.gov. FBI Crime Data Explorer — cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp. Retrieved: 2 September 2026.
Do not combine these two California figures. The California Department of Justice reports a 2024 property crime rate of 2,082.7 per 100,000; the same year derived from FBI data is 1,986.7. Both are correct. The agencies use different inclusion rules — CA DOJ counts arson within property crime and the FBI's property crime total does not — so the two must never appear in the same comparison or the same chart.
The number that matters
How much of it gets solved
Volume is the wrong thing to worry about. Clearance is the right thing, and it is where San Diego looks materially worse than the national picture, not better.
| Scope | All property crime | Burglary | Motor vehicle theft |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 17.4% | 17.4% | 10.5% |
| California | 11.3% | 10.1% | 6.6% |
| San Diego Police Department | 6.6% | 14.9% | 7.9% |
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime Data Explorer, offences and clearances, agency ORI CA0371100 for San Diego Police Department — cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp. The national 17.4% figure is also stated directly in the FBI's UCR Summary of Reported Crimes in the Nation, 2025. Period: calendar year 2025. Type: COUNT; the ratio is computed. Retrieved: 2 September 2026.
In 2025 San Diego Police Department cleared 1,456 of 21,897 reported property crimes. That is 6.6% — about one in fifteen. "Cleared" means cleared by arrest or by exceptional means, which is not the same as a conviction, and clearances recorded in a year may relate to offences from an earlier year, so treat the ratio as an approximation rather than a precise rate.
This is the honest case for recording your own premises, and it does not require a crime wave to hold. If an offence happens at your building, the probability that an investigation produces a result is low, and the evidence most likely to exist is the evidence you captured. That is an argument about who holds the record, not an argument about how frightening the neighbourhood is.
What we do with this, and what we will not claim
We are a commercial security integrator in San Diego. We survey premises, design camera coverage, install and cable it, and where a site wants it monitored we monitor it. Sorrento Valley, Kearny Mesa and Miramar — the three districts at the top of the table above — are ordinary working territory for us, which is the only reason this page is worth our writing.
What we will not do is attach a deterrence percentage to any of it. There is a widely circulated set of figures in this industry claiming that premises without cameras are several times more likely to be burgled, or that cameras cut crime by some specific proportion. We went looking for a primary source for those numbers and could not find one, so they do not appear on this page. If you see them quoted elsewhere, ask where they came from.
The defensible statement is narrower and more useful: a very small proportion of property crime in San Diego is cleared, so if something happens on your site the usable record is likely to be the one your own system captured. Whether a given camera position actually produces that record is a question about sightlines, lighting and where a camera is pointed, and it is settled at survey — never promised on a web page. You can see how we approach that on our commercial camera installation page, and how sites that want eyes on the feed out of hours are handled under remote video monitoring.
Two boundaries, stated plainly. We work on commercial premises only and not on private residences — the residential column in the table above is a classification in SDPD's data, not a description of anything we sell. And we do not hold a C-10 or a C-16, so we do not work on fire alarm systems; that is coordinated with your own licensed fire alarm contractor.
The underlying files, the API responses and the scripts used to produce every count on this page are retained. If you want to check the working or you think we have read something wrong, tell us and we will correct the page.