Mérida Crime Statistics 2026: The Actual Numbers

What are Mérida's headline crime numbers for 2026?

The five statistics that answer most questions, side by side with the national picture:

For what these numbers feel like on the ground — neighborhoods, women's safety, night life — the companion read is Is Mérida safe? The data, honestly read.

How many homicides does Yucatán actually have?

Few enough that individual cases make statewide news. The recent series for the whole state (population ≈2.4 million):

For scale: national homicide numbers are overwhelmingly driven by seven states — Guanajuato, Chihuahua, Baja California, Sinaloa, Estado de México, Guerrero and Michoacán — which together account for about half of all cases. Yucatán sits at the opposite extreme of that distribution, which is the statistical basis for its Level 1 U.S. advisory.

What crimes are actually rising in Mérida? (The honest part)

Low is not zero, and 2025 brought a real caveat: Yucatán's overall crime incidence grew about 29% in 2025, its highest level in four years. The growth is concentrated in non-violent, high-volume offenses — theft, fraud (much of it online), family and property disputes — while officials also reported worrying increases in femicide and sexual offenses, from a small base but moving the wrong way.

The practical reading for residents: violent crime against strangers remains rare by any North American standard, but petty theft exists (don't leave phones on café tables), online marketplace fraud is the scam you're most likely to meet (see the wire-transfer rules in the renting guide), and women's-safety awareness matters here as it does everywhere. A city can be Mexico's safest and still not be a theme park.

How does Mérida compare with other Mexican cities?

On perception, INEGI's national urban-security survey (ENSU) puts Mérida among the 15 cities with the lowest sense of insecurity in Mexico — 38.2% of residents feel unsafe versus a 59.8% national average, a gap of over 21 points. Earlier in 2026 the figure dipped as low as 33.7%. Private security indexes tell the same story: Mérida routinely tops city rankings (a recent index scored it 93/100 — grade A, first place among 51 cities).

Against the cities expats usually weigh it against: Mérida's homicide and violent-crime indicators run far below Cancún or Playa del Carmen (Quintana Roo carries a U.S. Level 2 advisory), and dramatically below central and northern metros — context we map neighborhood by neighborhood in the neighborhoods guide and city-vs-city in Mérida vs Playa del Carmen.

Where does this data come from — and how should you read it?

Three official sources do the heavy lifting: SESNSP (Mexico's national public-security secretariat, which publishes monthly crime-incidence files by state — the homicide counts above), INEGI's ENSU (a quarterly survey of how safe residents actually feel), and the U.S. State Department advisory (a composite judgment updated through the year). Two honest caveats apply to all Mexican crime data: incidence counts measure reported crime (Mexico's unreported rate — the cifra negra — is high everywhere, Yucatán included), and city-level breakdowns lag state-level ones. That's why this page pairs hard counts with the perception survey — when both point the same direction, as they do for Mérida, the signal is solid. Data verified August 2026; we re-check when SESNSP publishes new cuts.