When it comes to safety, Mexico has a reputation that makes the move hard for many people considering it. For a good year now, however, the official figures have pointed in a direction that does not quite fit that reputation: the number of victims of intentional homicide is falling sharply. In August 2026 the public prosecutors of the 32 states recorded 1,264 victims of homicidio doloso, that is 40.8 a day, the lowest monthly figure in the entire series, which begins in 2015.
The figures come from the Secretariado Ejecutivo del Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública (SESNSP), the statistics office of Mexico's national public security system. It publishes them as open crime statistics data, broken down by offence and by victim, by state and by municipality. Unless stated otherwise, all figures are based on the victims file for January to August 2026 and on the comparison file for the years 2015 to 2025. Data for September was not yet available on 12 October.
The key figures to August 2026
First the overview, each for January to August:
The decline over the year was not even. In January the daily average was 51.7, and in April as high as 52.8. Only from May did it fall month after month: 47.7 in May, 45.4 in June, 42.7 in July and 40.8 in August. For comparison: even in the quietest month of 2015, the lowest year in the series so far, the daily figure was 43.7. From 2018 to 2021 it never fell below around 83 a day, and in the worst year, 2019, the total for the year reached 34,722 victims.
For the whole of 2025 the statistics show 23,612 victims, after 30,061 in 2024. The decline therefore began the previous year and has continued in 2026.
Who the victims are
The victims file breaks the figures down by sex and by weapon. Of the 11,586 victims to August, 10,380 were men and 988 women; for 218 the sex was not recorded. Just over three quarters of the victims, 8,801, were killed with a firearm. The pattern is typical of violence between armed groups and differs sharply from what most readers in Europe associate with homicide.
Separately, the statistics count femicides, that is killings of women for gender-based reasons. To August there were 442 victims, after 466 in the same period of 2025. The SESNSP publishes a separate monthly report on violence against women, with data to 31 August 2026.
How Mexico counts
To read the figures correctly, you need to know three things. They also explain why different figures for the same month often circulate in media reports.
Victims or case files
The statistics come in two versions. One counts carpetas de investigación, the investigation files a prosecutor's office has opened. The other counts victims. Because one file can cover several people killed, the victim figures are higher. From January to August 2026, prosecutors opened 10,115 files for intentional homicide, while 11,586 victims were counted. For the question of how dangerous a country is, the victim figure is the more meaningful one. The figures of 40.8 and almost 87 a day refer to victims.
*Fuero común*: only what the states report
The figures cover the fuero común, the offences that fall under the jurisdiction of the state prosecutors. According to the methodology manual of the new register, the statistics are fed from the databases of the Fiscalías and Procuradurías of the 32 states. Offences under federal law (fuero federal) are kept by the SESNSP in a separate data series.
It also matters what the register does not show: it counts offences that were reported or recorded by the authorities at the moment the file is opened. Charges, convictions and the outcome of investigations are, according to the manual, expressly not included.
Provisional, corrected later
The monthly figures are provisional. The report on violence against women puts it plainly: these are alleged offences from opened investigation files, which may be updated in the following months. The methodology manual names the typical reasons: an offence is reclassified after further investigation, more victims emerge, the place of the crime is assigned to a different municipality, or a file was simply not reported. The states then resubmit the entire month. That is why figures that appeared in the press in September may differ from the values you find in the file today.
The new method since January 2026
Since January 2026 Mexico has recorded crime with a new instrument, the Registro Nacional de Incidencia Delictiva (RNID). It replaces the reporting form in use since 2015 and records, among other things, the exact age and nationality of victims. For comparisons across years, one question is decisive: is the new series comparable with the old one? For intentional homicide, the SESNSP answers yes in a separate methodological note on historical comparison: the series is unchanged and comparable with earlier publications. Attempted homicides have been shown as a separate subcategory since 2026, but they were not included in the intentional homicide figure before either. The comparison of 2026 with 2025 is therefore methodologically sound.
Where the violence happens
If you are planning a move, the national average matters less than the question of where people are being killed. And here the statistics are clear: seven of the 32 states account for almost half of all victims.
| State | Victims Jan to Aug 2026 | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Guanajuato | 983 | 8.5% |
| Baja California | 970 | 8.4% |
| Chihuahua | 924 | 8.0% |
| Sinaloa | 866 | 7.5% |
| Estado de México | 702 | 6.1% |
| Guerrero | 652 | 5.6% |
| Morelos | 618 | 5.3% |
Together that is 5,715 victims, or 49.3% of all victims in the country. At the other end of the scale are states with very few cases. The fewest victims to August were recorded in Yucatán, with 17.
There is a lot of movement within the top group too. Guanajuato remains in first place, but it has almost halved its number compared with January to August 2025, from 1,934 to 983. In Sinaloa the number fell from 1,172 to 866, a drop of just over a quarter. In Chihuahua it fell by around 24%, in Baja California by around 18%.
One caveat applies to every figure in the ranking: these are absolute numbers, not rates per inhabitant. Populous states have more cases for that reason alone. For comparing a state with itself over time, however, the figures work well.
What this means for the places foreigners move to
Most foreigners moving to Mexico head for a handful of places. The statistics report states, not cities. The following figures therefore always apply to the whole state, each for January to August 2026 against the same period in 2025.
Yucatán (Mérida): 17 victims, after 20 the year before. That is the lowest figure of all 32 states.
Querétaro: 89 victims, after 111, a fall of around 20%. Querétaro is therefore far below the state average of around 360 victims.
Mexico City: 533 victims, after 579, a fall of around 8%. The capital has therefore improved less than the country as a whole. Size helps to put it in context: the figure is spread over a city of millions with very different neighbourhoods.
Jalisco (Puerto Vallarta, Guadalajara): 550 victims, after 911 in the same period the year before, a fall of almost 40%. The state nonetheless remains in the middle of the field, and the UK Foreign Office (FCDO) advises against all but essential travel to the areas south and south-west of Lake Chapala up to the border with Colima and to eleven municipalities in the north of the state. Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta are outside these areas.
Oaxaca: 560 victims, exactly as many as in the same period the year before. Oaxaca is therefore one of only two states with no fall (the other is Tlaxcala) and ranks eighth, just behind the top group. In all the other 30 states the number fell. If you are thinking of Oaxaca city or the Pacific coast, you should know this.
Quintana Roo (Cancún, Playa del Carmen, Tulum): 87 victims, after 217, a fall of around 60%.
Baja California Sur (La Paz, Los Cabos): 43 victims, after 93, more than halved.
Guanajuato (San Miguel de Allende): The state tops the ranking, with 983 victims after 1,934 in the same period the year before. In Guanajuato in particular, exactly where in the state you settle makes a real difference.
The general questions of which neighbourhoods in Mexico City or Mérida suit newcomers and how to protect yourself day to day are covered in our overview of safety in Mexico. The new figures do not change its core message; they back it up: it depends on the state, not the country.
What government travel advice says
Foreign ministries assess Mexico region by region, not as a whole country.
The FCDO, in its travel advice (last updated on 20 October 2026), advises against all but essential travel to Zacatecas, to Colima (except Manzanillo reached by sea or air), to Guerrero (except Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa reached by air, so Acapulco is included), to Michoacán (except Morelia and Pátzcuaro on set routes), to Chihuahua (except Chihuahua city and set routes), to Sinaloa (except Los Mochis and Mazatlán) and to Tamaulipas outside its south and a few highways. In other states the advice covers parts only: the cities of Tijuana and Tecate in Baja California, Guanajuato south-west of road 45D including Celaya and Irapuato, the areas of Jalisco named above, and in Chiapas a 40 km strip along the border with Guatemala and Federal Highway 199 between San Cristóbal and Palenque. It does not advise against all travel to any part of Mexico. The FCDO says some areas have a high crime rate because of fighting between rival organised crime gangs, with a risk of being caught in the crossfire or mistaken for a gang member. It also reports that criminals have physically and sexually assaulted British travellers in major resorts such as Cancún, Tulum, Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta.
Every government publishes its own advice, for example GOV.UK for the United Kingdom or the Government of Canada. Read the current version from your own country directly, because ministries word their advice differently and update it at different times.
What stands out is how well the statistics and the travel advice complement each other. Sinaloa, Guerrero and Guanajuato rank high in both sources. Conversely, the FCDO names no part of Yucatán or Querétaro in its advice against travel, and that is exactly where the statistics count few cases.
What the figures do not show
However clear the trend, the statistics have gaps you should know about.
Missing persons do not appear in the homicide statistics as long as no body has been found and no killing established. Mexico keeps a separate register for them, the Registro Nacional de Personas Desaparecidas y No Localizadas (RNPDNO) of the National Search Commission. By its own account, a missing person report can conceal a whole range of offences, from enforced disappearance through kidnapping to human trafficking. A falling homicide figure alone therefore does not prove that violence is falling to the same degree. If you want to assess the situation fully, look at both registers.
Unreported offences are missing by nature, because the register only counts what ends up in an investigation file. For everyday crimes such as theft, the statistics therefore show only part of what happens.
Extortion remains a problem that has not followed the homicide trend. To August the statistics counted 7,620 victims of completed extortion, after 7,838 in the same period the year before, so only a slight fall. For newcomers who open a business or let out property, that figure is more relevant than the homicide count.
Cities and neighbourhoods are not shown in the state file. The SESNSP's municipal file goes deeper, but even there it remains unclear whether an offence took place in the centre or on the edge of town. For choosing a specific neighbourhood, no statistic replaces experience on the ground.
What you can do now
If you already live in Mexico: the fall is real, but it is unevenly spread. Check the trend in your own state rather than the national average. If you live in Oaxaca or Mexico City, you are seeing a much weaker trend than someone living in Quintana Roo or Baja California Sur.
If you are planning the move: make the choice of state a safety decision, and read your own foreign ministry's advice alongside it. Yucatán and Querétaro sit at the bottom of the statistics, while Jalisco and Guanajuato call for a closer look at the specific place. Everything else you need for the move is summed up in the article on the pros and cons of moving to Mexico, and the route to a residence permit in the article on residency in Mexico.
If you are comparing countries: check whether a figure means victims or case files, whether it is provisional and which period it covers. How other countries in the region publish their figures is shown, for example, by the official half-year figures from Uruguay. The bigger picture is in our safety check for Latin America.
When the next figures come out
The SESNSP publishes the statistics monthly, each time with data to the end of the previous month. The data for September 2026 follows in October, then for the first time with nine months of figures under the new method. Because the states can resubmit past months, check the earlier months again in the new file too.
For the question of whether Mexico is right for you, the figures are an important building block. They show a country where lethal violence is as low as it has been since the series began, and where at the same time it is concentrated in a few states. For a move, what counts in the end is less the national average than the place where you will live.