Oakland recorded 1,008 commercial burglaries in 2025, down from 1,777 in 2024 — a 43.3 percent drop in one year. The figures come from the Oakland Police Department’s own CrimeWatch data, published on the city’s open data portal, filtered to the department’s “BURG – COMMERCIAL” category.
What this page doesn’t count: auto burglary
Oakland’s data separates burglary into distinct categories, and one of them dwarfs the rest: BURG – AUTO recorded 6,573 offenses in 2025 — roughly 6.5 times the commercial count. This page never mixes the two. Auto burglary and commercial burglary are structurally separate categories in OPD’s own records, tracked and reported independently. That distinction matters here more than in most cities: Oakland’s national reputation for property crime is driven overwhelmingly by car break-ins, and a business owner reading headlines about “Oakland burglary” is very often reading about a category that has nothing to do with their building. The number that actually describes risk to a commercial premises is the 1,008 figure above — not the 6,573 figure attached to parked cars.
The trend: a gradual decline, not a single-year cliff
Commercial burglary in Oakland has fallen for three straight years in the department’s data: 2,116 in 2023, 1,777 in 2024, and 1,008 in 2025. The pace accelerated in 2025 — local news coverage of OPD’s preliminary December 2025 year-end figures described a dramatic citywide decline across crime categories that year, which OPD attributed to factors including expanded camera and license-plate-reader technology, additional patrol support, and enforcement priorities. Those are reported as OPD’s own stated reasons, not independently verified causes.
One honest caveat: 2026 year-to-date figures are not presented here as a trend. OPD’s own data carries a roughly 90-day processing lag, meaning the most recent one to three months in any pull are materially undercounted until the backlog of report processing catches up. A monthly count that appears to fall sharply in the most recent months of 2026 reflects that lag, not a real continuation of the decline — so this page reports 2023-2025 as the comparable, closed-year record and leaves 2026 out of the trend discussion entirely.
When it concentrates: 2025 by month
The heaviest months in 2025 were December (102), July (101), and a tie between January and March (99 each). The spread across the year is relatively even compared to some cities’ data, without a single dominant season.
Where it concentrates: 2025 by police beat
By OPD beat, 2025’s commercial burglary counts ran highest in beat 26X (81), followed by 19X (61) and 20X (59), per the beat field in the department’s own CrimeWatch records.
Residential outnumbers commercial here — unlike some other California cities
Oakland recorded 1,430 residential burglaries in 2025 against 1,008 commercial — residential burglary is actually the larger category in this city’s data. That’s a genuine contrast worth noting: in some California cities we’ve analyzed, commercial burglary outnumbers residential; in Oakland, it runs the other way.
What this means for an Oakland business
A 43 percent drop is real, welcome news, and it doesn’t change what commercial burglary targets: premises that sit closed and unattended overnight. Guardian Integrated Security covers Oakland with live video monitoring — trained agents on your existing cameras who challenge intruders over two-way audio, dispatch Guardian’s own patrol, and alert and coordinate with Oakland police with a verified account of a crime in progress — alongside on-site guard coverage for locations that need staffed presence. Every property starts with a free assessment. Call (800) 400-3167.
Sources
Burglary counts, monthly figures, and beat breakdowns come from the Oakland Police Department’s CrimeWatch data, published on the City of Oakland’s open data portal, accessed August 21, 2026. The description of OPD’s preliminary 2025 year-end crime figures is drawn from local news coverage of the department’s own December 2025 reporting. Sibling city analyses: Fremont commercial burglary statistics and San Jose burglary statistics.
