Does Moving to a Rural State Mean Less Crime?

Rural states feel safer. That feeling is mostly correct, but it hides some numbers that should give any relocating family pause before assuming a zip code surrounded by cornfields is automatically a low-crime zip code.

Urban vs. Rural Crime: What the Data Actually Shows

Violent crime in urban areas runs roughly double the rate of rural areas. The most recent Bureau of Justice Statistics figures (as of late 2025) put urban violent victimization at approximately 24 per 1,000 residents, compared to around 11 per 1,000 in rural areas. That gap is real and consistent across multiple years of data.

Property crime follows a similar pattern. Cities concentrate opportunity for theft, burglary, and vehicle crime in ways that spread-out rural geography simply does not. Fewer people per square mile means fewer targets per block.

But those national averages mask enormous variation. A rural county in New Mexico looks nothing like a rural county in Vermont, and treating all rural America as a single category produces misleading conclusions.

The States That Break the Rural Safety Assumption

New Mexico consistently posts the highest violent crime rate in the country. As of late 2025, its rate sat at roughly 778 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, the highest of any state. New Mexico is predominantly rural. So is Alaska, which ranks second or third nationally for violent crime depending on the year.

Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana all carry high violent crime rates despite large rural populations. These are not city-crime stories. Small towns and rural corridors in these states drive their numbers upward.

On the other end, Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire are consistently the three safest states by violent crime rate, each posting figures below 200 per 100,000 residents. They are also three of the most rural states in the country. So rurality does correlate with safety, but only in certain regions.

The honest answer is that state-level policy, poverty rates, economic mobility, and cultural factors shape crime far more than population density alone.

Gun Violence: Where Urban and Rural Diverge in a Different Way

Homicide rates are higher in urban areas. That part of the conventional wisdom holds up. But gun death rates, which include suicide, tell a different story. Rural Americans die from gun-related causes at rates that match or exceed urban Americans when suicide is counted, because firearm access is higher and mental health resources are thinner in rural areas.

For someone relocating and focused on personal safety from violent crime by strangers, urban environments do carry more risk. But total mortality from firearms does not favor rural living as cleanly as the homicide-only data suggests.

State gun law grades matter here. States like California and Massachusetts, which have strict firearm regulations and are heavily urban, post low overall gun death rates. States like Wyoming and Alaska, rural and permissive on firearms, post high total gun death rates driven by suicide. This is worth knowing before treating a low-population state as automatically safer on every metric.

What This Means for Your Relocation Decision

If avoiding violent crime is a primary driver of your move, the data supports heading toward rural New England over rural Southwest or rural Deep South. Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine offer low crime alongside relatively low cost of living compared to coastal metros. They are not zero-tax destinations, which matters if you are also thinking about retirement income or estate planning, so read our breakdown of the best states for retirees to avoid taxes before making a final call.

For buyers focused on the full financial picture, the true cost of living in high-tax states shows how safety and tax burden interact in ways that rarely get discussed together.

Rural does not automatically mean safe. State matters more than density. Within a given state, rural areas do tend to outperform urban ones on violent crime, but picking the wrong rural state puts you in a worse position than living in a mid-sized city in a well-governed state.

Run the numbers on specific states using our state comparison calculator before committing to a move.

Key Takeaways

• Urban violent crime runs roughly double the rural rate nationally, at approximately 24 vs. 11 victimizations per 1,000 residents (as of late 2025), but averages hide wide state-level variation.
• New Mexico posts the highest state violent crime rate in the country at around 778 per 100,000 residents, despite being predominantly rural, which proves that rural geography alone does not guarantee safety.
• Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire are the three safest states by violent crime rate, each below 200 per 100,000, and all three rank among the most rural states in the country.

Compare crime rates, tax burdens, and cost of living side by side for any two states at liveordiehere.com.