Retail Theft Statistics 2026

Last updated November 2026.

This page collects widely cited measures of retail theft in the United States and links each one to the organization that published it. Each figure is shown with the period it covers. The final sections explain how the sources differ and how to cite this page.

Key Figures at a Glance

Statistic	Figure	Period	Source
Average change in shoplifting incidents reported by surveyed retailers	12.4% decrease	2025 vs. 2024	NRF, The Impact of Retail Theft & Violence 2026 (July 2026)
Average change in merchandise theft incidents	8.1% decrease	2025 vs. 2024	NRF, The Impact of Retail Theft & Violence 2026 (July 2026)
Retailers reporting more incidents tied to organized retail crime	40%	Survey of February to April 2026	NRF press release (July 30, 2026)
Retailers reporting fewer than half of store theft incidents to police	63%	Survey of February to April 2026	NRF press release (July 30, 2026)
Average change in shoplifting incidents per year	18% increase	2024 vs. 2023	NRF, The Impact of Retail Theft & Violence 2025 (October 28, 2025)
Change in threats or acts of violence during shoplifting or theft events	17% increase	2024 vs. 2023	NRF, The Impact of Retail Theft & Violence 2025 (October 28, 2025)
Retailers reporting a transnational organized retail crime group in thefts against them	67%	Prior 12 months, survey of June to August 2025	NRF, The Impact of Retail Theft & Violence 2025 (October 28, 2025)
Average retail shrink rate	1.6%	Fiscal year 2022	NRF, National Retail Security Survey 2023 (September 2023)
Total retail shrink losses	$112.1 billion	Fiscal year 2022	NRF, National Retail Security Survey 2023 (September 2023)
Share of shrink from external theft, including organized retail crime	36%	Fiscal year 2022	NRF, National Retail Security Survey 2023, full report
Change in average reported shoplifting rate, 21 large U.S. cities	10% decrease	2025 vs. 2024	Council on Criminal Justice, Year-End 2025 Update (January 2026)
Change in average reported shoplifting rate, 18 large U.S. cities	4% increase	January to June 2026 vs. same period 2025	Council on Criminal Justice, Mid-Year 2026 Update (July 2026)
Flash mob shoplifting incidents reported to the FBI (six or more offenders)	3,321	2020 to 2024	FBI, Reported Flash Mob Shoplifting Incidents: 2020 to 2024 (December 2025)
Estimated larceny-theft offenses per 100,000 U.S. residents	1,431.9 in 2023; 1,334.5 in 2024	2023 and 2024	BJS, Crime Known to Law Enforcement, 2024 (March 2026)
Fatal work injuries in retail trade classified as violent acts	104 of 258	2024	BLS, Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, Table A-1
Workplace homicides, all industries	470	2024	BLS, Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (February 19, 2026)
Share of retail returns that are fraudulent	9%	2025 estimate	NRF and Happy Returns, 2025 Retail Returns Landscape (October 15, 2025)
Change in retail theft, New York City	14% decrease	2025 vs. 2024	NYPD Commissioner, City of New York briefing (January 6, 2026)
Change in retail theft, New York City	More than 12% decrease	2026 year to date, as of October 6, 2026	NYPD quarterly crime briefing, City of New York (October 6, 2026)

Retail Theft and Shrink

Shrink is the difference between the inventory a retailer has on record and the inventory actually on hand. The National Retail Federation’s 2023 National Retail Security Survey put the average shrink rate at 1.6% for fiscal year 2022, up from 1.4% the year before, or $112.1 billion in losses based on 2022 total retail sales. The full report, based on 177 retail brands surveyed from May to July 2023, divided fiscal year 2022 shrink by source:

• External theft, including organized retail crime: 36%
• Internal (employee) theft: 29%
• Process, control failures and errors: 27%
• Unknown: 6%
• Other: 1%

NRF’s later studies, The Impact of Retail Theft & Violence, report changes in incidents rather than an industry shrink total. The 2024 study found a 93% increase in the average number of shoplifting incidents per year in 2023 compared with 2019, and a 90% increase in dollar loss over the same period. The 2025 study found an 18% increase in 2024 compared with 2023. The 2026 study found a decline: a 12.4% average decrease in shoplifting incidents and an 8.1% average decrease in merchandise theft incidents in 2025 compared with 2024.

Federal estimates cover larceny-theft of all kinds, not retail theft alone, and show it declining between 2023 and 2024. The Bureau of Justice Statistics report Crime Known to Law Enforcement, 2024 estimated that the larceny-theft rate fell from 1,431.9 to 1,334.5 offenses per 100,000 residents, and that the larceny-theft victimization rate fell 11%.

Organized Retail Crime

Organized retail crime generally refers to groups that steal merchandise in quantity, usually for resale. In the same year that shoplifting incidents declined, retailers reported more organized activity. In NRF’s 2026 study, 50% of retailers reported more repeat offenders, 40% reported more incidents tied to organized retail crime and 37% reported more walkout or pushout theft. In the 2025 study, 67% of retailers said a transnational organized retail crime group had been involved in thefts against their company in the past year, and 50% reported increases in cargo or supply chain theft linked to organized retail crime.

Large group thefts are a small share of reported shoplifting. The FBI’s December 2025 special report, Reported Flash Mob Shoplifting Incidents: 2020 to 2024, counted 3,321 shoplifting incidents with six or more offenders at retail locations in National Incident-Based Reporting System data. Of 3,978,403 shoplifting incidents reported over those five years, 0.1% involved six or more offenders and 62.7% involved one. The FBI cautioned that the rise in yearly totals, from 301 in 2020 to 1,096 in 2024, may not reflect a true increase, in part because more agencies joined the system each year. Among agencies that reported in all five years, the count rose from 288 in 2020 to 454 in 2024, after a slight decline from 468 in 2023.

Violence and Workplace Safety in Retail

Retailers have reported more violence connected to theft. In the 2025 NRF study, threats or acts of violence during shoplifting or theft events rose 17% in 2024 compared with 2023. In the 2024 study, 73% of retailers said shoplifters were showing more violence and aggression than a year earlier, and 91% said more than in 2019. The 2026 study reported more homelessness-related disruptions and guest-related incidents, with retailers responding through management training (72%), employee training (65%) and risk intelligence technology (61%).

Police data show that group thefts are more likely than other shoplifting to involve a weapon or an injury. In the FBI flash mob report, 3.4% of incidents with six or more offenders involved an offense requiring a weapon, compared with 1.3% of other shoplifting incidents, and 1.3% involved injuries, compared with 0.3%.

Fatality data come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, released February 19, 2026, recorded 5,070 fatal work injuries in 2024 across all industries, including 470 homicides, up from 458 in 2023. In Table A-1, 104 of the 258 fatal work injuries in retail trade in 2024 were classified as violent acts, a category that includes both violence by other persons and self-inflicted injury.

Return and Other Fraud

While shoplifting declined, retailers reported that fraud and scams increased. In the 2026 study, retailers reported increases in phone scams (69%), loyalty fraud (51%) and gift card theft or fraud (42%).

Returns are a separate exposure. The 2025 Retail Returns Landscape from NRF and Happy Returns projected $849.9 billion in returned merchandise in 2025, or 15.8% of annual sales, compared with 16.9% in 2024. The report found that 9% of all returns are fraudulent. The study was based on a survey of 358 ecommerce professionals at large U.S. merchants and a survey of 2,006 consumers.

Theft Trends in Major Cities

The Council on Criminal Justice tracks reported shoplifting in a sample of large cities using police incident data. Its Year-End 2025 Update found that the average reported shoplifting rate in 21 cities was 10% lower in 2025 than in 2024, and about 4% lower than in 2019. Its Mid-Year 2026 Update found that the average rate in 18 cities was 4% higher in the first half of 2026 than in the first half of 2025, and about 5% higher than in the same period of 2019. Both reports exclude New York City from the shoplifting figures.

• New York City: The NYPD Commissioner reported that retail theft declined 14% citywide in 2025, with nearly half of retail theft complaints resulting in an arrest, the highest rate since 2019. At the October 6, 2026 quarterly briefing, retail theft was down more than 12% year to date, with nearly 5,000 fewer incidents and reductions in all five boroughs.
• Chicago: The reported shoplifting rate fell 16%, from 262.0 to 219.3 per 100,000 residents, between the first halves of 2025 and 2026, and remained 15% higher than in the first half of 2019.
• San Francisco: The reported shoplifting rate in the first half of 2025 was 16% lower than a year earlier and 20% higher than in the first half of 2019. At 172.8 per 100,000 residents, it was 26% below the highest first-half rate, recorded in 2022.
• California: The Legislative Analyst’s Office reported in June 2025 that retail theft, measured as reported shoplifting and nonresidential burglary, rose 32% from 2021 to 2023 and about 11% from 2014 to 2023, while remaining well below the highs of the 1980s.

State and Federal Law Changes

Many states now treat organized retail crime as its own offense, often with aggregation rules that combine thefts over time or across stores. The organized retail crime laws by state reference lists each statute, its core element and its effective date. Recent changes in the largest markets include:

• Federal: The House passed the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act (H.R. 2853) on May 12, 2026, by a vote of 348 to 60. NRF has urged the Senate to pass it, and 94% of respondents in its 2026 study agreed that federal legislation would help disrupt organized theft groups.
• Online marketplaces: The INFORM Consumers Act, effective June 27, 2023, requires online marketplaces to collect and verify identifying information from high-volume third-party sellers, in part to deter the sale of stolen goods.
• California: Proposition 36, approved by voters in November 2024, makes theft of $950 or less a felony for a person with two or more prior convictions for certain theft crimes, and allows felony theft and property damage sentences to be lengthened by up to three years when three or more people commit the crime together.
• New York: The FY2025 state budget made assault causing physical injury to a retail worker on the job a felony, allowed the value of goods stolen from different stores in the same scheme to be combined, and created an offense for fostering the sale of stolen goods, according to the Governor’s office. Separately, the Retail Worker Safety Act (Labor Law section 27-e) requires employers with 10 or more retail employees in New York State to adopt a retail workplace violence prevention policy and train employees, and requires employers with 500 or more retail employees statewide to provide silent response buttons starting January 1, 2027. See the New York Retail Worker Safety Act page for details.

How to Read These Numbers

Retail theft figures often appear to disagree because they rest on different methods.

How to Cite This Page

For any single figure, cite the original source linked beside it. To cite this page as a compilation: McCray Global Protection Corp., “Retail Theft Statistics 2026,” mccraygp.com/retail-theft-statistics/, last updated November 2026.

Common Questions

Is retail theft going up or down?

Both NRF and police data show shoplifting fell in 2025: a 12.4% average decrease in incidents among NRF respondents, and a 10% lower reported rate across 21 cities tracked by the Council on Criminal Justice. In the first half of 2026, the Council’s 18-city average was 4% higher than a year earlier.

How much does retail theft cost retailers each year?

NRF’s 2023 National Retail Security Survey estimated $112.1 billion in total shrink for fiscal year 2022. That figure covers all shrink, not theft alone; external theft, including organized retail crime, accounted for 36%.

Has shoplifting returned to pre-pandemic levels?

It depends on the period and the city. Across the Council on Criminal Justice sample, the 2025 average reported shoplifting rate was about 4% lower than in 2019, and the first half of 2026 was about 5% higher than the same period in 2019. In Council on Criminal Justice city reports, Chicago (first half of 2026) and San Francisco (first half of 2025) were above their 2019 levels.

How common are flash mob thefts?

The FBI counted 3,321 shoplifting incidents with six or more offenders at retail locations from 2020 to 2024. Such incidents are rare, but more likely than other shoplifting to involve a weapon or an injury.

How much retail theft is reported to police?

Retailer surveys give one measure. In NRF’s 2026 study, 63% of retailers said they reported fewer than half of store theft incidents to law enforcement, and in the 2025 study the figure was 64%. Police counts therefore reflect only part of the theft that occurs.