New Zealand burglary risk by city - 2024 Report

Despite being New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland ranks just eleventh in the country for burglary risk in our new burglary risk report, with 13 burglaries per 1,000 residents – a figure that may come as a surprise. This falls just under the urban average from the report, at 13.3 burglaries per 1,000 residents.

Rotorua, which tops the list with a rate of 22.9 yearly burglaries per 1,000 residents, faces a burglary rate nearly double that of Auckland, reflecting the strain felt in communities still recovering economically from COVID’s impact on tourism.

In a close second place was Hastings in the Hawkes Bay, with 21.3 burglaries per 1,000 residents over the last 12 months. Closely beating out Gisborne for third place was Hamilton, with 18.6 burglaries per 1,000 residents in the last year.

We analysed police victimisation data over the last 365 days, filtered by victimisation type Unlawful Entry With Intent/Burglary, Break and Enter, and manually narrowed down to each city’s population boundaries. The burglary counts were then compared against population data provided by Statistics NZ to calculate a burglaries per 1,000 residents index.