The City of Miami recorded 27 homicides in 2024 and again in 2025, according to the Miami Police Department’s incident-based reporting data.1Miami Police Department. FIBRS Informational Statistics Those are the lowest annual totals in the city’s modern history and the clearest answer to how many murders happen in Miami per year right now. With a population of roughly 509,000, that works out to about 5.3 homicides per 100,000 residents, slightly below the national homicide rate of 5.9 per 100,000 reported by the CDC for 2024.2CDC. FastStats – Homicide
Annual Homicide Counts in Recent Years
The Miami Police Department’s Florida Incident-Based Reporting System (FIBRS) figures show the drop clearly:
- 2025: 27 homicides
- 2024: 27 homicides
- 2023: 32 homicides
- 2022: 52 homicides
These counts reflect murder and nonnegligent manslaughter. Justifiable homicides are tracked separately; FIBRS recorded 2 of those in 2024, which brings the broader total for that year to 29.1Miami Police Department. FIBRS Informational Statistics News reports sometimes cite slightly different numbers depending on when the count was pulled and which categories were included.
The 2022-to-2023 drop was especially sharp. Then-Mayor Francis Suarez called it a 38% year-over-year reduction and said the 2023 count was the lowest Miami had recorded since 1947, when the city began tracking homicides.
City of Miami Is Not Miami-Dade County
Before reading any Miami crime headline, check which “Miami” it means. The City of Miami is a single municipality of about half a million people. Miami-Dade County is far larger, covering 34 incorporated cities, towns, and villages plus unincorporated areas, with a total population above 2.8 million.3Miami-Dade County. Miami-Dade County Municipalities
The counts don’t overlap. In the first quarter of 2025, the Miami-Dade Police Department (which covers unincorporated areas and some outside municipalities) reported 11 homicides, while the City of Miami Police Department reported 8.4Major Cities Chiefs Association. Violent Crime Survey – First Quarter Comparison Miami Beach, Hialeah, Homestead, and other municipalities in the county run their own departments with their own separate counts. A county-wide total spread across more than 2,000 square miles will always look larger than the city figure, even in a quiet year for the city itself.
How Miami Got Here: The Long Trend
Today’s numbers bear almost no resemblance to Miami’s violent past. In 1980, the City of Miami recorded 229 murders, giving it the highest big-city homicide rate in the country.5Governing. Miami: The Under-Appreciated Urban Success Story Dade County as a whole recorded 573 homicides that same year. The cocaine trade and rapid demographic change made the city a national symbol of violent crime.
Counts fell through the 1990s and 2000s, though not in a straight line. Miami saw a spike around 2020, in line with most major American cities, and then a rapid decline. Going from 52 homicides in 2022 to 27 in each of the last two years brought the city to levels it hadn’t seen since the late 1940s.
What’s Driving the Drop
Several efforts are credited with the decline, though no single factor explains it. At the county level, Miami-Dade launched the Peace and Prosperity Plan in June 2021, a $95 million program targeting the causes of gun violence, unanimously approved by the Board of County Commissioners.6Miami-Dade County. Preventing Gun Violence
The plan’s first initiative, Operation Summer Heat, added police presence, security cameras, and license plate readers in high-crime areas. It was later renewed as Operation Community Shield. Within its first eight months, the combined effort removed over 1,200 firearms and produced double-digit percentage decreases in shootings across multiple police districts.6Miami-Dade County. Preventing Gun Violence
Firearm-related homicides in particular have fallen sharply. Analysis by the public safety group Scaling Safety found a 42% overall drop in firearm-related homicides in Miami-Dade County. In Liberty City, historically responsible for a disproportionate share of the city’s violence, one ZIP code went from 20 homicides in 2020 to 8 in 2024.
Community-based violence intervention groups have grown alongside the police operations. Organizations like the Circle of Brotherhood work directly with people at highest risk of gun violence involvement, and they are widely credited with helping sustain the reductions after enforcement operations wind down.
How Miami Compares Nationally
At 27 homicides across a population of roughly 509,000, the City of Miami’s 2024 rate was about 5.3 per 100,000 residents.1Miami Police Department. FIBRS Informational Statistics The national figure for the same year was 5.9 per 100,000.2CDC. FastStats – Homicide That places Miami below the national average, a position that would have been hard to imagine in the 1980s.
Keep the size of the city in mind when reading the rate. Miami’s population is small for a major city, so a small change in the raw count moves the per-capita number quickly. A year with 40 homicides instead of 27 would push the rate above 7.8 per 100,000. The direction of travel, however, is unambiguous.
Where To Find the Numbers Yourself
The Miami Police Department publishes FIBRS statistics on its website, updated periodically and broken down by offense category, including murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, justifiable homicide, and negligent manslaughter.1Miami Police Department. FIBRS Informational Statistics Local counts feed into the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s statewide FIBRS program and from there into the FBI’s national crime statistics.7FDLE. Florida Incident-Based Reporting System (FIBRS) Preliminary counts released during the year sometimes differ slightly from the final annual figures once data is reclassified along the way.