Luxembourg crime rates: what changed between 2015 and 2025?

Luxembourg’s crime statistics look very different depending on whether one counts raw police cases or the rate per inhabitant. In 2015, the Police Grand-Ducale recorded 40,353 offences and a criminality rate of 7,168 offences per 100,000 inhabitants. In 2025, police handled 41,489 cases, but the rate per 100,000 inhabitants was 6,005.

That means the raw number of police-handled cases was only 2.8% higher than ten years earlier, while the per-capita rate was about 16.2% lower. The country has grown, and the overall police-recorded crime rate has not grown with it. This is the first important caveat in any discussion about whether Luxembourg has become “more dangerous”.

The second caveat is methodological. Police statistics count offences known to the police: offences observed by officers and offences reported by the public. The police itself warns that one event can contain several offences, that legal qualification can change during investigation, and that unreported offences remain outside the statistics. The numbers are therefore best read as a trend tool, not as a complete map of all harm.

Within the categories, however, the ten-year shift is striking. Violent thefts rose from 494 completed cases in 2015 to 731 cases of theft with violence or threat in 2025. Because the category wording is not perfectly identical across the published summaries, the comparison should be treated cautiously; still, the direction is clear: the 2025 figure is far above the 2015 level and violent theft is again a major public-safety concern.

Violence against people also occupies more space in the statistics. Voluntary assault and battery rose from 2,939 cases in 2015 to 4,111 in 2025, an increase of almost 40%. Police interventions for domestic violence rose from 802 to 1,297, up roughly 61.7%. Threats increased from 1,595 to 2,468 cases, while defamation, slander and insults rose from 1,714 to 2,416.

Property crime is more mixed. In 2015, offences against property were the largest group, with 23,561 cases. In 2025, theft alone accounted for 20,355 cases, including 13,945 simple thefts. Vehicle theft, one of the few directly comparable subcategories, fell from 302 stolen vehicles in 2015 to 279 private cars reported stolen in 2025.

Burglaries also need a careful reading. The 2025 report says burglaries in unoccupied homes fell from 496 to 459 compared with 2024, while burglaries in occupied houses, apartments and cellars rose slightly to 1,576. The 2015 presentation stresses that burglaries were a major part of offences against property, but its published summary does not give one simple directly comparable total for the same 2025 categories.

The drugs picture has also changed. In 2015, the broad “stupéfiants” category counted 4,675 cases. The 2025 report does not publish one directly comparable total in the press release, but it says drug trafficking fell 19.5%, possession fell 25.2% and consumption fell 37.4% from 2024, while police apprehended 216 suspected drug dealers.

The decade story is therefore not that all crime exploded. It is more specific: Luxembourg’s overall recorded crime burden per inhabitant is lower than in 2015, but the categories most visible to residents — violence, threats, domestic violence and street theft — have become more prominent. That is why public concern can rise even when the overall rate does not.