Homicide rates in Europe: 36 countries ranked on police figures, 2022-2024
Lithuania’s police recorded 2.42 homicides per 100,000 people a year from 2022 to 2024, the highest rate of 36 European countries. Switzerland had the lowest, 0.53. Death certificates rank several countries very differently.
Dots: Liechtenstein and Malta, too small for the map.
Embed this map on your site
Copy this code into your page. The image updates with the ranking. Please keep the link to the source.
<a href="https://rankcomet.com/homicide-rate/"><img src="https://rankcomet.com/map/en/homicide-rate.png" width="1200" height="1468" alt="Map of Europe: homicides per 100,000 people a year, 2022-2024" loading="lazy"></a>
<p>Source: <a href="https://rankcomet.com/homicide-rate/">Rankcomet</a>, CC BY 4.0</p>
Lithuania has the highest homicide rate in Europe: its police recorded 2.42 intentional homicides per 100,000 people a year from 2022 to 2024. Latvia follows at 2.30, then Albania at 1.51 and Estonia at 1.50. Switzerland has the lowest rate of the 36 countries, 0.53, just below Italy (0.56).
The ranking pools three years of police figures published by Eurostat. One year would not be enough for small countries: Malta recorded 8 homicides in 2022, 2 in 2023 and 5 in 2024.
The Baltic states at the top
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia take three of the first four places. Belgium and Finland share 5th place at 1.48, and Iceland is 7th (1.39). Norway, at 0.66, is near the bottom, with Slovenia, Czechia and Portugal.
France is 9th, at 1.26, with 2,590 homicides recorded over the three years. Its large neighbours all rank lower: Germany 23rd (0.79), Spain 30th (0.70), Italy 35th.
Death certificates rank countries differently
There is a second count. When a doctor certifies a death, the cause is coded, and Eurostat publishes the deaths coded as assault. Over 2021 to 2023, the latest years both sources cover, 31 countries have the two figures.
For most of them, the two orders are close (rank correlation of 0.77). Belgium is the exception that stands out: 3rd on police figures (1.46), 14th on death records (0.78). Germany goes from 19th to 30th, with 0.40 deaths from assault per 100,000 against 0.76 homicides recorded by the police.
Police figures minus death records, 2021-2023
Belgium0.68
Lithuania0.59
France0.41
Finland0.38
Ireland0.38
Slovakia0.37
Germany0.36
Bulgaria0.26
Malta0.26
Austria0.26
Denmark0.22
Iceland0.18
Poland0.18
Italy0.13
Croatia0.10
Switzerland0.09
Netherlands0.08
Sweden0.05
Spain0.04
Greece0.03
Norway0.03
Czechia0.01
Serbia0.00
Hungary0.00
Cyprus−0.01
Portugal−0.15
Slovenia−0.19
Estonia−0.28
Romania−0.37
Luxembourg−0.40
Latvia−0.88
Homicides recorded by the police per 100,000 people a year, minus deaths from assault per 100,000 on death certificates. Above zero, the police count more. Source: Eurostat, police-recorded offences and causes of death
The gap runs the other way in Romania (13th on police figures, 4th on death records), Luxembourg (15th, then 5th) and Portugal (24th, then 11th). Latvia has the highest rate on death records, 3.07, well above its police figure of 2.19.
Definitions explain part of these gaps. The French figure sent to Eurostat leaves out deliberate violence that causes death without intent to kill. The statistics service of the French interior ministry (SSMSI) counts it: of its 976 homicide victims in 2024, 10% died this way. With that count, France’s rate for 2022 to 2024 would be 1.43, and France would rank 7th.
Small countries move a lot
Luxembourg’s police recorded 9 homicides in 2022, 4 in 2023 and 2 in 2024. Liechtenstein, with about 40,000 inhabitants, recorded one in three years, which is enough for a rate of 0.84 and 19th place. Over a single year, it would have been last in 2022 and 2023 with no homicide, and second in 2024, behind Lithuania.
Key figures
homicides per 100,000 people a year in Lithuania, the highest of 36
2.42
in Switzerland, the lowest
0.53
in France, 9th
1.26
Belgium’s rank on death records, against 3rd on police figures
14th
Share
How we calculated this
Scope: the countries of our European scope (the member states of the Council of Europe that the UN M49 standard places in Europe, plus Cyprus) for which Eurostat gives police figures for 2022, 2023 and 2024: the 27 EU member states, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. The United Kingdom, Ukraine, Moldova, Andorra, Monaco and San Marino have none. Source: Eurostat, dataset crim_off_cat, intentional homicides recorded by the police (ICCS category 0101), updated on 29 April 2026, and population on 1 January from dataset demo_gind, updated on 30 September 2026, both downloaded on 27 October 2026. The rate adds up the homicides of the three years and divides them by the sum of the three populations, per 100,000. We compute it the same way for every country, including Albania in 2024 and Bosnia and Herzegovina, for which Eurostat publishes counts but no rate. Our yearly rates differ from Eurostat’s by 0.07 at most, because Eurostat has since revised some populations (Bulgaria, Portugal). Countries with the same rate to two decimals share a rank. Death records: Eurostat dataset hlth_cd_acdr2, deaths from assault (ICD-10 codes X85 to Y09 and Y87.1), crude rate per 100,000, average of 2021, 2022 and 2023, updated on 8 June 2026. The chart subtracts this rate from the police rate over the same three years, for the 31 countries that have both (Liechtenstein has no police figure for 2021; Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and North Macedonia have no death records at Eurostat). Checks: Eurostat’s counts match Sweden’s Brå exactly (121 in 2023, 92 in 2024) and Italy’s Istat within 3% (334 and 327 victims). France’s count matches the intentional homicides of the interior ministry’s statistics service (SSMSI), 90% of its 976 victims in 2024; the other 10% died of deliberate violence without intent to kill, which the French figure sent to Eurostat leaves out. The CSV adds the yearly counts and the death record rate.
Rankcomet (2026). Homicide rates in Europe: 36 countries ranked on police figures, 2022-2024. Updated October 27, 2026. https://rankcomet.com/homicide-rate/
Young Croatians leave their parents’ home at 31.5 on average, the latest in Europe. Finns leave at 21.3, ten years earlier. We ranked Eurostat’s 2025 estimates for 31 countries and checked them against a second EU survey.
On 31 January 2025, Slovenia held 1,804 inmates for 1,346 prison places, the most crowded prisons of 41 European countries. France came second at 130.8%. We worked out every country’s density from the Council of Europe’s penal statistics and checked them against national prison data.
People in Luxembourg live 24.6 years on average after they stop working, the longest of the 38 OECD countries. France follows with 24.3 years and Mexico comes last with 16.5. We ranked the OECD’s figures for 2024 and checked them against national life tables.
#1 
#1 
#1 