California commercial burglary statistics for 2024 show a decline of 12.5 percent, putting commercial burglary 6.2 percent below where it stood before the pandemic. The figures come from analysis of the California Department of Justice’s Crimes and Clearances files — the state’s official crime reporting series, which tracks commercial burglary as a category distinct from residential.
The decline is real, it’s sustained, and it runs against most of what businesses hear about crime in California. It also doesn’t mean what a lot of coverage suggests it means, which is worth working through carefully.
The wider property crime picture
Commercial burglary didn’t fall in isolation. California’s property crime rate reached 2,084 per 100,000 residents in 2024 — a 9.9 percent drop from 2023, and the lowest level recorded since 1985. Burglary overall fell 11.8 percent in the same year and now sits 20.3 percent below its 2019 level.
Not everything moved the same direction. Shoplifting rose 14.2 percent in 2024 and is 48 percent above where it was in 2019, so retail loss and commercial burglary are running on genuinely different tracks. Auto theft fell 16.7 percent but remains 19.3 percent above 2019.
The state’s own reporting has continued in the same direction since: California’s Attorney General reported the statewide violent crime rate falling 10.2 percent in 2025, and the 2024 report showed property crime and burglary rates reaching their lowest levels in California DOJ crime data going back to 1969.
What “commercial burglary” counts — and what it doesn’t
The distinction matters more than the headline. Burglary means entering a structure with intent to steal. It is not the same offense as shoplifting, which is theft from an open business during trading hours, and it is not the same as theft from a vehicle, which is classified as larceny.
This trips up a lot of published crime commentary. A page that reports “business crime” by combining burglary, shoplifting, and parking-lot break-ins produces a number that describes nothing in particular — and given shoplifting rose while burglary fell, combining them actively obscures both trends. The figures on this page are commercial burglary only.
Why statewide California commercial burglary statistics have limits
Two caveats belong on any statewide figure, and we’d rather state them than have you find them later.
First, statewide percentages average across enormously different local realities. Our own city-level analyses show the range: Oakland’s commercial burglaries fell 43 percent in a single year, while Sacramento’s fell about 7 percent, and Hayward’s police department reported non-residential burglary down 27 percent. A business plans around its own city’s numbers, not the state’s.
Second, California’s reporting depends on local agencies submitting data, and not all of them do every year. Independent analysis of the state’s crime trends has noted years where a number of agencies failed to contribute statistics to the DOJ, producing an undercount. State totals are the best available measure, not a perfect census.
What the city data adds
The statewide trend is the backdrop. The detail that actually informs a security decision sits in the city-level records, where the pattern is consistent across every jurisdiction we’ve analyzed: commercial burglary happens overnight, in buildings nobody is in, and it is rarely solved afterwards.
- Los Angeles — 68.5 percent of non-residential burglaries occurred between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., and 9 percent were cleared by arrest
- Oakland — commercial burglary fell from 1,777 to 1,008 year over year, while vehicle burglary ran roughly six times higher
- Sacramento — 1,148 commercial burglaries against 934 residential, one of the cities where businesses are targeted more often than homes
- San Jose and Fremont — both showing declines consistent with the statewide direction
What a falling number does and doesn’t change
A 12.5 percent decline is genuinely good news, and it deserves to be reported as such rather than buried under alarm. What it doesn’t change is the shape of the risk for any individual property. Commercial burglary is still overwhelmingly an after-hours crime against empty buildings, clearance rates remain low once it has happened, and a downward statewide trend offers no protection to a specific warehouse on a specific night.
It also arrives alongside a second shift worth knowing about: a growing number of California cities now require verified response — independent confirmation that a crime is actually in progress — before police will dispatch to an alarm.
Where Guardian fits
Guardian Integrated Security’s monitoring agents watch a property’s existing cameras live, challenge intruders over on-site speakers, dispatch Guardian’s own patrol, and alert and coordinate with local police using a verified account of a crime in progress. On-site guard coverage is available where a property needs staffed presence.
We cover commercial property across California, and every site starts with a free on-site assessment. Call (800) 400-3167.
Sources
Statewide commercial burglary, burglary, property crime, shoplifting and auto theft figures are drawn from the California Department of Justice’s OpenJustice data portal and its Crimes and Clearances files, as analyzed by the Public Policy Institute of California. Statewide 2025 crime rate figures come from the California Attorney General’s Crime in California 2025 statistical report. City-level figures are drawn from our own analyses linked above, each sourced to the relevant police department’s published data.
