San Diego Commercial Burglary Statistics: 2025 Police Data

San Diego police recorded 1,014 commercial burglaries in 2025, against 1,102 residential burglaries — a near-even split that puts commercial burglary at 47.9% of the city’s 2,117 total burglary offenses. The figures come from the San Diego Police Department’s own 2025 NIBRS offense export, recounted directly from the city’s open-data file rather than carried forward from an earlier snapshot. Burglaries cluster on weekends (Saturday is the single highest day, 16.5% of all commercial incidents) and in the city’s business and industrial corridors, led by Sorrento Valley and Kearny Mesa. San Diego’s alarm ordinance requires alarm companies to verify every non-panic signal with two contact attempts before requesting a police response — a stricter, upfront rule than some other California cities use.

By Jacob Ross, Security Specialist · Guardian Integrated Security · CA PPO #121089 · Last updated August 28, 2026

Every crime figure below was recounted on 28 August 2026 directly from the San Diego Police Department’s NIBRS offense export for 2025 (77,830 records, downloaded fresh that day). Because this is a live records file, not a fixed annual report, counts can shift slightly as cases are added, reclassified, or corrected — this page states the export date and row count so any figure can be reproduced or checked for drift. Statute and fee figures come from the San Diego Municipal Code and the SDPD’s own False Alarm Program FAQ, verified against the current PDF text on the same date.

Commercial Burglary by the Numbers

• 1,014 commercial burglaries reported in San Diego in 2025, coded “459 PC BURGLARY (COMMERCIAL) (F)” in the department’s own NIBRS export (San Diego Police Department, 2025 offense data).
• 1,102 residential burglaries reported over the same period — commercial burglary makes up roughly 47.9% of the city’s 2,117 total burglary offenses in 2025.
• Commercial burglary is spread across all nine SDPD divisions, but Eastern Division records the most at 174 incidents (17.2% of the citywide commercial total), followed by Northwestern (131, 12.9%) and Central (125, 12.3%).
• At the neighborhood level, Sorrento Valley (104 incidents) and Kearny Mesa (96 — the department’s own export spells it “Kearney Mesa”) — both major business and industrial park corridors — lead the city, followed by San Ysidro (48).

Where It Concentrates: SDPD Divisions

Every one of SDPD’s nine police divisions recorded commercial burglaries in 2025, but the volume is not evenly spread. The top three divisions account for more than 42% of the citywide commercial total between them.

• Eastern — 174 incidents (17.2%)
• Northwestern — 131 incidents (12.9%)
• Central — 125 incidents (12.3%)
• Northeastern — 111 incidents (10.9%)
• Western — 110 incidents (10.8%)
• Northern — 102 incidents (10.1%)
• Southeastern — 100 incidents (9.9%)
• Mid-City — 81 incidents (8.0%)
• Southern — 79 incidents (7.8%)

When Commercial Burglaries Happen

• June was San Diego’s highest month for commercial burglary in 2025, with 123 incidents; November was the lowest, with 52.
• Saturday is the single highest day of the week for commercial burglary (167 incidents, 16.5% of the annual total), followed by Friday (155, 15.3%).
• Weekends (Saturday + Sunday) account for 29.5% of the year’s commercial burglaries — meaning roughly 70.5% still happen on weekdays, when many businesses assume a staffed premises deters break-ins.
• The San Diego Police Department’s own open-data export does not include a time-of-day field for this dataset, so this page reports day and month patterns only — it does not claim an overnight “peak hour,” unlike some other city data sources that do carry timestamps.

San Diego’s Alarm Permit and False-Alarm Rules

Every burglar alarm monitored inside San Diego city limits needs a police alarm permit, under San Diego Municipal Code Chapter 3, Article 3, Division 37 (§33.3701 et seq.).

• The police alarm permit costs $31.00 per year for both residential and commercial properties, and must be renewed annually (SDMC §33.3707, SDPD False Alarm Program FAQ).
• Before requesting a police response, an alarm company must perform “enhanced call verification” — two contact attempts to the alarm user, in person, by phone, or electronically — for every non-panic alarm signal (SDMC §33.3716). This applies from the first alarm, not just repeat activations.
• An authorized responder must appear at the alarm site within 30 minutes of being asked by police (SDMC §33.3709), and audible alarms must automatically shut off within 15 minutes (SDMC §33.3715).
• False-alarm fines escalate within a 12-month period: $100 (1st), $200 (2nd), $300 (3rd), $400 (4th), $500 (5th or more) — with a $300 flat penalty for an unpermitted alarm (SDPD False Alarm Program FAQ). San Diego offers no free false-alarm waivers.
• A sixth false alarm within twelve months of the permit’s issuance, renewal, or reinstatement triggers permit revocation, with a fine assessed for that alarm and every one after it (SDMC §33.3717(c)). Excessive false-alarm responses can escalate to a misdemeanor citation under SDMC §33.3724.

San Diego’s verification rule is stricter at the front end than some other California cities that only require verified response once an alarm has already produced repeat false activations in a rolling year. See how Fremont’s commercial burglary numbers and alarm rules compare.

What Escalating False-Alarm Fines Mean for Your Alarm Budget

The $100-to-$500 escalating fine schedule is per false alarm, not a flat annual cap, and it resets only when a permit is renewed or reinstated after revocation. A site with a poorly tuned system — a motion sensor picking up HVAC airflow, a door contact that’s come loose — can work through the full five-fine schedule in a single busy season, then lose its permit outright on the sixth activation. Because San Diego’s enhanced-call-verification rule applies to every signal from the first one, not just repeat offenders, the fastest way to avoid that cost isn’t fewer false alarms after the fact — it’s a monitoring setup that can visually confirm real activity before a call for service is ever placed, cutting down on both false-alarm fees and the response delay a phone-verification-only system carries.

What This Means for San Diego Businesses

Under San Diego’s ordinance, an unverified alarm can sit in a monitoring company’s call queue while two contact attempts are made — time a break-in in progress doesn’t wait for. Live video monitoring shortens that gap: a trained agent watching the camera feed can visually confirm an intrusion and alert San Diego police directly, rather than relying on phone-based verification alone. Guardian does not dispatch police itself — it alerts and coordinates with SDPD, while dispatching its own patrol response where that’s part of a business’s plan. For sites that want a camera presence installed and maintained locally, San Diego security camera installation and scheduled security patrol are the two most common complements to monitoring for the weekend hours this data shows carry the most risk.

Cite This Page

Guardian Integrated Security, “San Diego Commercial Burglary Statistics: 2025 Police Data,” 2026. https://www.guardianintegratedsecurity.com/san-diego-commercial-burglary-statistics/

Frequently Asked Questions

Does San Diego require a permit for a business burglar alarm?

Yes. Under San Diego Municipal Code §33.3707, every alarm system in the city — residential or commercial — needs a police alarm permit before it can be put into service. The permit costs $31.00 per year and must be renewed annually; using an alarm system without one is a code violation (SDMC Division 37).

What happens before San Diego police respond to a business alarm?

The alarm company must perform “enhanced call verification” — two separate contact attempts to reach the alarm user — before requesting a police response, for every non-panic signal, starting with the very first alarm (SDMC §33.3716). This is stricter than ordinances that only require verification after repeat false alarms.

How much does a false alarm cost a San Diego business?

Fines escalate within a 12-month period: $100 for the first false alarm, rising to $200, $300, $400, and $500 for the fifth or later, plus a flat $300 penalty for an unpermitted alarm (SDPD False Alarm Program FAQ). There are no free waivers, and a sixth false alarm within the period triggers permit revocation (SDMC §33.3717(c)).

When are San Diego businesses most likely to be burglarized?

Saturday is the single highest day for commercial burglary (16.5% of 2025’s total), and June was the highest month (123 incidents) against a November low of 52, per SDPD’s 2025 NIBRS export. The department’s export does not include a time-of-day field, so no overnight “peak hour” claim is made on this page.

Sources

• City of San Diego Police NIBRS Offense Dataset (2025 export, downloaded from seshat.datasd.org/police_nibrs/pd_nibrs_2025_datasd.csv on 28 August 2026; 77,830 records)
• San Diego Municipal Code, Chapter 3, Article 3, Division 37 — Police Regulated Burglary and Panic Alarm Systems (verified 28 August 2026)
• San Diego Police Department, False Alarm Program FAQ (verified 28 August 2026)

Methodology

All burglary counts on this page come from the San Diego Police Department’s NIBRS offense dataset for calendar year 2025, published by the City of San Diego on its open-data portal and downloaded as the 2025 CSV export on August 28, 2026 (77,830 offense records). Commercial and residential burglary were isolated using the dataset’s own code_section field, which carries the department’s exact offense labels “459 PC BURGLARY (COMMERCIAL) (F)” and “459 PC BURGLARY (RESIDENTIAL) (F)”; division, neighborhood, month and day-of-week figures use the dataset’s own division, neighborhood, month and day_of_week fields. One record in the 2025 file carries both burglary codes and is counted in the “all burglary” total but not double-counted in the commercial or residential splits. The export carries no time-of-day field, so no peak-hour claim is made. The alarm permit and fine figures are sourced separately to the San Diego Municipal Code and SDPD’s own False Alarm Program FAQ, verified against the current PDF text on the same date, not to the crime dataset.

Dataset landing page: Police NIBRS Offense Data — City of San Diego Open Data. Statute and programme pages: San Diego Municipal Code Ch. 3, Art. 3, Div. 37 · SDPD False Alarm Program FAQ.

The NIBRS export is a live records file that SDPD updates as cases are entered, reclassified or corrected, so every count on this page is point-in-time as of the August 28, 2026 download and a later export can differ slightly; figures are re-checked at each monthly re-audit.

Guardian Integrated Security has protected 2,700+ California businesses for 20+ years. BBB A+ rated. California PPO #121089. To have a San Diego property assessed against the patterns this data describes, request a quote or call 800-400-3167.