Car thefts climb in 45 Chicago community areas as citywide total rises

Car theft is climbing again in Chicago. Police recorded 13,731 motor vehicle thefts from January through September 2026, up from 12,650 in the same months of 2025, according to city crime data. That is a rise of 8.5%.

The citywide figure hides big local swings. Reported thefts rose in 45 community areas and fell in 28. The hardest-hit area added 168 thefts, while the area with the steepest decline posted a change of -73.

For drivers heading into winter, the risk depends heavily on where they live and park. Here is what the numbers show, and what they cannot explain.

Where thefts climbed and where they fell

The community area with the largest increase went from 269 reported thefts in January through September 2025 to 437 this year. That is a rise of 62.5%, far faster than the citywide pace.

That area was not simply returning to an older normal. Its 2026 total was also 58 thefts higher than in the same months of 2024, a year when citywide thefts ran well above today's level.

At the other end, the community area with the biggest drop recorded 276 thefts this year. That was a decline of 20.9% from 2025, the largest drop in raw numbers anywhere in the city.

More areas moved up than down. With 45 community areas reporting more thefts, the increase was spread across much of the city rather than packed into a few places.

Still, 28 community areas went the other way. For residents there, the citywide headline does not match what is happening on their blocks.

Up from last year, down from 2024

The longer view is more mixed. Chicago's 2026 total remains 18.8% below the 16,903 thefts reported from January through September 2024.

The city is also well off its worst recent stretch. The Council on Criminal Justice found that, among the years it examined, Chicago's vehicle theft rate from January through June was highest in 2023 (Council on Criminal Justice). Its rate for the same months of 2026 was well below that peak (Council on Criminal Justice).

But the same research group found the rate was still far above its 2019 level (Council on Criminal Justice). That leaves Chicago in an odd spot: better than 2023 and 2024, worse than 2025, and well above where it stood before.

Chicago moving against the national trend

What stands out is that Chicago is rising while much of the country is falling. The Council on Criminal Justice found Chicago's rate from January through June 2026 was higher than a year earlier, while the average among the cities it studied dropped (Council on Criminal Justice).

The National Insurance Crime Bureau reported a steep national decline in vehicle thefts in early 2026 compared with the same period of 2025 (Insurance Business). Among the big metro areas with the most thefts, Chicagoland was the only metro where thefts went up (autos.yahoo.com).

Car theft is also bucking the trend for other crimes. The council's report listed robbery and carjacking among the offenses posting the largest declines (Council on Criminal Justice).

The city data does not say why thefts are rising here, and the outside research cited in this story does not pin down a cause for Chicago either.

Some vehicles have drawn particular attention. Figures cited by The Drive showed luxury vehicle thefts in 2024 and rising Jeep thefts, with Jeeps also showing up in storefront and ATM smash-and-grabs (thedrive.com).

What to watch next: whether the full-year 2026 total ends above 2025, and whether the community areas with the biggest jumps keep climbing through the cold months. Residents can look up their own community area on the city's crime data portal and compare it with the trends shown here.

How we did this

We used reported motor vehicle theft incidents from the City of Chicago's public crime data, which was updated through early October 2026. We counted thefts from January through September in 2024, 2025 and 2026, both citywide and by community area, and compared each year's totals. Citywide, that came to 16,903 in 2024, 12,650 in 2025 and 13,731 in 2026.

Motor vehicle theft: the theft or attempted theft of a car, truck, motorcycle or other vehicle, as recorded in Chicago police crime data. Community area: one of the official districts the city uses to organize data. Each contains several smaller, informal neighborhoods. Chicagoland: the wider metro region, including the city and its suburbs, which federal agencies call the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metro area.

Limitations

• Recent crime data is preliminary. Police may reclassify, add or remove incidents as cases are reviewed, so 2026 counts could change.
• The data counts thefts reported to police. Thefts that go unreported are not included.
• We compared raw counts, not rates per resident. Community areas differ widely in population and in how many cars are parked there.
• Counts show what changed, not why. The data cannot tell us whether shifts reflect policing, theft rings, vehicle models or reporting habits.
• Outside figures from the Council on Criminal Justice and the National Insurance Crime Bureau cover different time periods and geographies, and use rates or metro-wide totals, so they are not directly comparable with our city counts.

Sources

• The publisher's Socrata open-data portal (named with each dataset): Crimes - 2001 to Present, latest period 2026-10-11, released Oct. 11, 2026; retrieved Oct. 12, 2026. Data