Is Halifax safe?
Halifax is higher-crime than most places of its size. It ranks safer than 30% of Canadian police services covering 25,000+ people on reported crime per person, based on Statistics Canada figures for 2025.
MkaeSense Safety IndexOut of 100. Higher is safer. Ranked 88 of 125 Canadian police services covering 25,000+ people, where 1 is safest.
How Halifax compares
Every dot is one of the 125 Canadian police services covering 25,000+ people. Further right means more thefts per person.
Halifax's theft rate of 26.6 per 1,000 residents is higher than 91% of Canadian police services covering 25,000+ people. The Nova Scotia average is 18.9 and the Canadian average is 13.7.
Year by year
Rate per 1,000 residents each year, compared with Nova Scotia and Canada.
When and how often cases are solved
Five-year change
Break-ins per 1,000 residents, 2020 to 2025.
Cases cleared in 2025
Share of reported offences police marked as cleared, usually by an arrest or charge.
Nearby places
Safety Index for the closest places we cover. Higher is safer.
Protect your home in Halifax
Picked for Halifax's biggest gap against the Canadian average: thefts.
Common questions
Is Halifax a safe place to live?
Halifax is higher-crime than most places of its size. Its MkaeSense Safety Index is 30 out of 100, which means it ranks safer than 30% of Canadian police services covering 25,000+ people on reported crime per person. Safety also varies a lot between neighbourhoods, so check the area you're looking at.
How common are break-ins in Halifax?
Police recorded 769 break-ins in 2025, or 1.5 per 1,000 residents. The Canadian rate was 2.6 per 1,000.
Is car theft a problem in Halifax?
There were 492 vehicle thefts in 2025, 0.95 per 1,000 residents, against 2.0 per 1,000 nationally. That is higher than 34% of Canadian police services covering 25,000+ people.
How is the Safety Index calculated?
We rank each place against others in the same country by its rate per person of violent crime (half the weight) and of property crime: break-ins, car theft and theft (the other half). The index is the share of places with a higher combined score. Where a police service did not report car thefts, its property crime is ranked on break-ins and theft only. It uses police-reported crime only, which depends on how often residents report. Full method, sources and a worked example.
Source: Statistics Canada, Table 35-10-0178, Incident-based crime statistics by police service, 2025. Coverage is the Halifax Metropolitan Area, Nova Scotia police service area. Rates per 1,000 residents and the Safety Index are MkaeSense calculations. Police-reported crime does not include crimes that were never reported. MkaeSense is not affiliated with any police service.