Safest Counties in California: 42 Ranked (2026)

California has 58 counties. Forty-two of them clear the reporting bar this page uses, and the gap between the quietest, Marin at 182 violent offenses per 100,000, and the busiest, Kern at 665, is 3.7 to one. What homes closed at over the last 12 months sits beside the rate where Resideline has enough sales to publish a median: 177,216 closing records tracked in the 30 counties that clear that bar.

The crime rates here are built from the 35,704,294 residents those police agencies actually report on, over the months they reported. Each figure is a single county-wide figure, so treat this as a way to narrow a search rather than a verdict on any street.

We do not treat missing or conflicting crime data as zero. A county appears here only when its reporting clears our reliability threshold, and we set aside results that conflict materially with the state's own records. Whether a county is ranked depends on its crime reporting alone; whether it shows a price depends on whether Resideline tracked enough closings there.

The ranking

The median values across these 42 counties are 423 violent and 1,392 property offenses per 100,000, a closed price of $443,000 and a household income of $91,808. Asking rents are shown for the 30 of them with enough rental listings, and the median of those is $2,222 a month.

A closer look at the 12 safest counties

1. Marin County

At 182 violent offenses per 100,000, Marin sits in the lowest quarter of the places on this list. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. Homes changed hands at a median $1,384,277, around 312 percent of what the rest of this list recorded. Low crime and high prices arrive together here, which is the arrangement buyers assume is universal and is not. Homes cost 9.5 times what the median household there earns, among the steepest ratios on this list. Its property rate, 1,246 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties. For prices at street level, see San Rafael, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.

2. Placer County

Placer records 201 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the lowest quarter of the California counties measured here. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. A median closing price of $650,000 puts it at roughly 147 percent of the middle figure for this list. Median household income is $115,845, roughly 126 percent of the level across this list. Property crime is low too, at 932 per 100,000, the bottom quarter of this list and 0.8 times the median comparable US county. The median rental listing asks $2,900 a month. Resideline publishes a separate page for Roseville, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.

3. Yolo County

Yolo's violent crime rate is 214 per 100,000 residents, the lowest quarter among the California counties Resideline can measure. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Homes there closed at a median of $600,000, about 135 percent of the median across this list. Property offenses run at 1,782 per 100,000, in the middle of this list. Asking rents run about $2,650 a month. For prices at street level, see Woodland, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.

4. San Mateo County

San Mateo records 231 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the lowest quarter of the California counties measured here. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Median household income is $158,569, roughly 173 percent of the level across this list. Property offenses run at 1,494 per 100,000, in the middle of this list.

5. Sonoma County

At 249 violent offenses per 100,000, Sonoma sits in the lowest quarter of the places on this list. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Homes changed hands at a median $750,000, around 169 percent of what the rest of this list recorded. Median household income is $105,956, roughly 115 percent of the level across this list. Property offenses run at 1,097 per 100,000, in the middle of this list. The median rental listing asks $2,900 a month. Resideline publishes a separate page for Santa Rosa, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.

6. El Dorado County

El Dorado's violent crime rate is 252 per 100,000 residents, the lowest quarter among the California counties Resideline can measure. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Homes there closed at a median of $646,944, about 146 percent of the median across this list. Median household income is $107,289, roughly 117 percent of the level across this list. Its property rate is also among the lowest here, 678 per 100,000, or 0.6 times the median comparable US county. Asking rents run about $2,650 a month. For prices at street level, see El Dorado Hills, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.

7. Orange County

Orange records 265 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the lowest quarter of the California counties measured here. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Buyers there paid a median of $1,143,314, some 258 percent of the level across the counties measured. That combination, among the safest counties here and among the most expensive, is what most buyers are picturing when they pay a premium for a quiet address. Homes cost 10.0 times what the median household there earns, among the steepest ratios on this list. Property offenses run at 1,360 per 100,000, in the middle of this list. Resideline publishes a separate page for Mission Viejo, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.

8. Imperial County

Imperial's violent crime rate is 266 per 100,000 residents, the lowest quarter among the California counties Resideline can measure. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Homes changed hands at a median $385,000, around 87 percent of what the rest of this list recorded. Median household income is $60,477, roughly 66 percent of the level across this list. Its property rate is also among the lowest here, 693 per 100,000, or 0.6 times the median comparable US county. The median rental listing asks $1,850 a month.

9. Riverside County

At 276 violent offenses per 100,000, Riverside sits in the lowest quarter of the places on this list. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Homes there closed at a median of $575,415, about 130 percent of the median across this list. At $3,000 a month in asking rent, the gross return here is in the top quarter of the counties measured. Its property rate, 1,537 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties. For prices at street level, see Menifee, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.

10. San Benito County

San Benito's violent crime rate is 282 per 100,000 residents, the lowest quarter among the California counties Resideline can measure. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Median household income is $109,002, roughly 119 percent of the level across this list. Its property rate is also among the lowest here, 461 per 100,000, or 0.4 times the median comparable US county.

11. Ventura County

Police in Ventura reported 294 violent offenses per 100,000 people, putting it in the lowest quarter of this list. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Buyers there paid a median of $849,311, some 192 percent of the level across the counties measured. That combination, among the safest counties here and among the most expensive, is what most buyers are picturing when they pay a premium for a quiet address. Against what households there earn, a home costs 7.5 times median income, in the top quarter of this list. Property offenses run at 1,190 per 100,000, in the middle of this list. Resideline publishes a separate page for Oxnard, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.

12. Nevada County

Nevada records 297 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the middle range of the California counties measured here. That is 1.2 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, though still below the California statewide rate of 447 per 100,000 in the same data. A median closing price of $615,000 puts it at roughly 139 percent of the middle figure for this list. At $3,200 a month in asking rent, the gross return here is in the top quarter of the counties measured. Property crime is low, at 729 per 100,000, the bottom quarter of this list and 0.6 times the median comparable US county. For prices at street level, see Grass Valley, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.

Does safety set the price in California?

Somewhat, and less than you would expect. The safest third of these counties runs 77 percent above the highest-crime third on price. The same safe places also earn 41 percent more, so income explains part of the raw gap. This state-level comparison does not isolate density, housing mix or other factors that may explain the remainder.

It is the same pattern our national study found across 688 counties, where crime stopped predicting prices once income was accounted for. The method is set out in our study, Does Crime Actually Lower Home Prices?.

That is a county-level result. Within a county, research at the scale of a block or a neighborhood finds that violent crime does lower the value of the homes nearest to it, so use these figures to compare counties, not streets.

Where safety and affordability overlap in California

Two of the 14 safest counties on this list also cost no more than the list's median once prices are set against local incomes: Placer (201 violent per 100,000, a home at 5.6 times median household income); El Dorado (252 violent per 100,000, a home at 6.0 times median household income). Against what households there earn, those are the counties where a low crime rate is not being charged for.

The large counties

Fifteen counties here have more than 500,000 residents. Their median violent rate is 453 per 100,000 against 414 for the smaller counties on the list, and the quietest of them is San Mateo at 231.

The counties we cannot rank

Larger California places are missing from the table above. Every one with more than 150,000 residents is listed here with the reason.

• •San Diego, with about 3.30 million residents, reports 89 percent of its population through the FBI program, below the 90 percent we require.

Reporting to the FBI is voluntary and incomplete. Where a place's agencies cover only part of its population, the rate is built on the part that reported, so it describes those communities rather than the whole area. We publish at 90 percent coverage or better, which is a line we chose rather than a point where the data becomes reliable.

How to read this list

The right way to use this is to narrow the list, then check the address. Averages at this scale hide the variation that actually matters once you are choosing between two houses.

Prices and rents are as of September 9, 2026, from closings and rental listings Resideline tracks over the previous 12 months; a price is shown where at least 100 closings were tracked and a rent where at least 50 listings were. Rent figures are the median asking rent on listings, not lease figures. Crime is the 2025 FBI Crime Data Explorer release, measured for the whole county over the months each agency reported, and violent crime means murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Household income is the Census SAIPE 2024 estimate of the county's median household income; population is the Census 2024 estimate. Where this page compares a rate with the median comparable US county, that figure (245 violent and 1188 property offenses per 100,000) is the median across the 874 US counties with at least 50,000 residents whose agencies reported on 90 percent or more of them for the year.

Sources and related pages

• •Crime: FBI Crime Data Explorer, agency-level offense counts for 2025, aggregated by county over the months each agency reported.
• •Income: Census SAIPE 2024, county median household income.
• •Population: Census county population estimates, vintage 2024.
• •Prices and rents: Resideline's tracked closings and rental listings, 12 months to September 2026.
• •Related: Safest counties by state; Does crime actually lower home prices?; California housing market; Safest counties in Arizona; Safest counties in Oregon.

Prepared with Resideline's research pipeline and reviewed by Jeffrey Batista, Resideline's founder.