Commercial Burglary Statistics Business Burglary Rates, Time of Day, and Clearance, Every Figure Traced to the FBI
Commercial burglary numbers get thrown around loosely, usually by someone selling an alarm. Every figure on this page comes from the FBI's Crime in the United States, 2024 report, released in 2025, and names the table it sits in. Where a popular claim cannot be verified, we leave it off.
The FBI estimated 373,766 burglaries of nonresidential structures, meaning stores, offices, warehouses and the like, in the United States in 2024, down from 452,896 in 2020. Overall burglary fell 8.6 percent from 2023 to 2024, part of a broad 8.1 percent drop in property crime. Two facts matter most for a business owner. First, commercial burglaries skew toward night, the opposite of residential burglaries, which peak during the day when houses are empty. Second, only 15.9 percent of property crimes were cleared by arrest in 2024, so more than four in five go unsolved. A camera that only records is evidence for a case that will most likely never close. A camera that is watched is the part that changes the outcome.
Commercial Burglary by the Numbers
National estimates are from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program, Crime in the United States, 2024. Time of day counts are FBI expanded offense data reported by law enforcement agencies, so treat those as the reported-agency pattern rather than a full national estimate.
| Figure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Nonresidential (commercial) burglaries, 2024 | 373,766 (est.) | FBI CIUS 2024 |
| Nonresidential burglaries, 2020 | 452,896 (est.) | FBI CIUS 2024 |
| Residential burglaries, 2024 | 405,776 (est.) | FBI CIUS 2024 |
| Overall burglary change, 2023 to 2024 | Down 8.6% | FBI CIUS 2024 |
| All property crime, 2024 | 5,986,400 offenses (down 8.1%) | FBI CIUS 2024 |
| Most common method of entry | Forcible entry | FBI CIUS 2024, 15,060 agencies |
| Property crimes cleared by arrest, 2024 | 15.9% | FBI CIUS 2024 |
| Nonresidential burglary time skew | Night higher than day | FBI expanded offense data |
Commercial Burglaries Happen at Night. Residential Ones Do Not.
This is the single most useful thing in the FBI data for a business owner, and most people have it backwards. In the FBI's expanded offense data, burglaries of nonresidential structures were reported more often at night than during the day. Residential burglaries were the opposite: they peaked during daytime hours, because that is when houses sit empty and the occupants are at work.
The logic is straightforward once you see it. A home is safest to burgle when nobody is home, which is the middle of a weekday. A store or office is safest to burgle when it is closed and dark, which is the middle of the night. That is exactly the window when no staff member is glancing at a monitor, and exactly why unwatched commercial cameras fail: the break-in happens during the eight hours nobody is looking.
It also tells you where to spend. For a business, after-hours coverage is not a nice-to-have, it is where nearly all the risk lives. That points to either a monitoring service or software that watches overnight and pushes an alert, rather than a system that simply records into an empty building. We lay the options out in our breakdown of security camera monitoring.
Most Commercial Burglaries Are Never Solved
In 2024, law enforcement agencies cleared 15.9 percent of all reported property crimes by arrest or exceptional means. Burglary sits inside that property crime bucket, and its clearance rate is historically at or below that overall figure. In round terms, more than four out of five business break-ins end without an arrest.
That number reframes what a camera is for. If you are buying cameras mainly so the police can catch whoever did it, the odds are against you before you start, because the footage arrives after the fact, the suspect is a stranger, and the case competes with everything else on an overloaded property crime docket. The higher-value job a camera can do is prevent the entry or interrupt it while it is happening, and that only works if something is actually watching the feed at 2am. Recording is for the 16 percent of cases that close. Monitoring is for the other 84 percent you would rather never happen.
When a break-in does happen, the practical follow-up is a police report and an insurance claim, both of which go faster when you already have a current, itemized record of what was on the premises and what it was worth. Keeping an up-to-date log of your equipment and its replacement value turns a frantic post-loss inventory into a lookup.
What the Data Says a Business Should Actually Do
Cover the closed hours
Commercial burglaries skew to night, so overnight and weekend coverage is where the risk concentrates. Size your monitoring for when the building is empty, not for business hours when staff are already present.
Assume no arrest
With property crime clearance under 16 percent, do not rely on the footage to catch anyone. Value the system for deterrence and interruption, and treat any arrest it enables as a bonus, not the plan.
Cover the entry points
Forcible entry remains the most common method, so cameras and alerts on doors, loading bays, and ground-floor windows earn their keep. Point them where someone would force their way in, not just at the register.
Numbers We Will Not Print
A few figures circulate constantly in security marketing that we could not trace to a primary source, so they are not on this page.
- 01 A precise national dollar loss per commercial burglary. The FBI does not publish a reliable average loss for nonresidential burglary specifically, and the round numbers you see quoted rarely cite one.
- 02 A single burglary clearance percentage stated to a decimal. We cite the FBI's overall property crime clearance of 15.9 percent, which burglary falls under, rather than a burglary-only figure presented as if it were exact.
- 03 Claims that cameras cut burglary by a fixed percentage. The evidence on deterrence is real but conditional, and the honest version lives in our sourced write-up rather than a headline number.
Commercial Burglary Questions
How many commercial burglaries happen in the US each year?
The FBI estimated 373,766 burglaries of nonresidential structures, meaning stores, offices, and warehouses, in the United States in 2024. That is down from 452,896 in 2020. Overall burglary fell 8.6 percent from 2023 to 2024, part of a broad decline in property crime. Freight in transit is a separate and rising exposure for warehouse and distribution operators; our cargo theft statistics cover that trend.
What time do most commercial burglaries happen?
At night. In the FBI's expanded offense data, nonresidential burglaries are reported more often at night than during the day, because businesses are closed and empty then. This is the reverse of residential burglary, which peaks during daytime hours when homes are unoccupied.
What percentage of burglaries are solved?
Few. In 2024, law enforcement cleared 15.9 percent of all reported property crimes by arrest or exceptional means, and burglary falls within that category. In practical terms, more than four out of five business break-ins end without an arrest, which is why prevention matters more than after-the-fact footage.
How do burglars usually break into a business?
Forcible entry is the most common method in the FBI data, followed by unlawful entry without force and attempted forcible entry. For a business that means doors, loading bays, and ground-floor windows are the points worth covering with both cameras and alerts, not just the interior sales floor.
Is commercial burglary going up or down?
Down, in the most recent federal data. Nonresidential burglaries fell from 452,896 in 2020 to 373,766 in 2024, and overall burglary dropped 8.6 percent from 2023 to 2024. Property crime as a whole fell 8.1 percent over the same period. Local trends can differ sharply from the national figure.
Do security cameras stop commercial burglaries?
They help most when they are monitored. Cameras that only record give you evidence for a case that usually will not close. Cameras that are watched, by a service or by AI software, can trigger a response while the break-in is happening, which is the version that actually prevents loss during the overnight hours when commercial burglaries cluster.
Watch the hours the burglars pick
Connect one camera free and let AI watch your overnight feeds, so an after-hours entry becomes an alert on your phone instead of a discovery the next morning.