Best placesIowaViolent Crime Rate

Safest Counties (Lowest Violent Crime) in Iowa (2026)

Shelby has the lowest violent crime rate of any county in Iowa, at 22.9 per 100k, followed by Calhoun and Butler. Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer (per-agency, 2018-2022 average), FBI CDE 2020-2024 avg. The full ranking of the top 25 counties is below.

Data updated 2024 - Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer (per-agency, 2018-2022 average)

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Safest counties for violent crime rate in Iowa

Top 25 of 99 counties with data.

Ranked by violent crime rate (FBI Crime Data Explorer (per-agency, 2018-2022 average), FBI CDE 2020-2024 avg), lowest first.

Safest counties for violent crime rate in Iowa
RankCountyValue
1Shelby22.9 per 100k
2Calhoun24.5 per 100k
3Butler25.2 per 100k
4Decatur25.8 per 100k
5Guthrie43.1 per 100k
6Carroll45.2 per 100k
7Humboldt46.0 per 100k
8Worth51.8 per 100k
9Ringgold67.6 per 100k
10Taylor70.2 per 100k
11Davis72.2 per 100k
12Audubon72.5 per 100k
13Howard72.7 per 100k
14Sioux75.3 per 100k
15Harrison76.2 per 100k
16Adair77.5 per 100k
17Mitchell79.7 per 100k
18Lyon85.8 per 100k
19Greene87.1 per 100k
20Pocahontas93.4 per 100k
21Clayton93.5 per 100k
22Grundy94.0 per 100k
23Dickinson100.6 per 100k
24Hancock101.4 per 100k
25Franklin102.9 per 100k

How this ranking works

This page ranks Iowa counties by violent crime rate, sorted so the safest places appear first. Click any county to see its housing, schools, crime, and demographics in detail.

For violent crime rate, a lower value is generally more favorable, so the top of the list is the lowest. Want to weigh violent crime rate against schools, taxes, commute, and more at once? Use the live map to build a custom match.

Data comes from public sources. Source attribution and the exact data vintage are shown above and on the full map of violent crime rate.

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