Safest Counties in Idaho: 9 Ranked (2026)
The 9 Idaho counties where police report enough to the FBI to build a reliable rate, ranked by violent crime, with home prices, asking rents and incomes where available.
Idaho has 44 counties. Nine of them clear the reporting bar this page uses, and the gap between the quietest, Madison at 59 violent offenses per 100,000, and the busiest, Canyon at 344, is 5.8 to one. Beside each rate sits what homes there closed at over the last 12 months, from 11,112 closing records Resideline tracked across all 9 counties.
The crime rates here are built from the 1,493,584 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
| # | County | Violent per 100k | Property per 100k | Median closed price | Median asking rent | Median income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Madison | 59 | 416 | $395,000 | $1,275 | $55,940 |
| 2 | Bonner | 65 | 573 | $600,000 | $1,995 | $71,891 |
| 3 | Kootenai | 178 | 681 | $579,789 | $2,100 | $83,330 |
| 4 | Bingham | 214 | 470 | $374,000 | $1,295 | $74,827 |
| 5 | Ada | 217 | 604 | $546,890 | $2,175 | $91,898 |
| 6 | Bonneville | 251 | 774 | $393,000 | $1,450 | $83,922 |
| 7 | Twin Falls | 267 | 739 | $360,000 | $1,625 | $73,098 |
| 8 | Bannock | 270 | 1,261 | $359,900 | $1,099 | $69,744 |
| 9 | Canyon | 344 | 595 | $424,990 | $1,695 | $84,164 |
A closer look at each county
1. Madison County
Madison records 59 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the lowest quarter of the Idaho counties measured here. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. The median closed price, $395,000, sits near the center of the counties measured. Homes cost 7.1 times what the median household there earns, among the steepest ratios on this list. Property crime is low too, at 416 per 100,000, the bottom quarter of this list and 0.4 times the median comparable US county. The median rental listing asks $1,275 a month.
2. Bonner County
At 65 violent offenses per 100,000, Bonner 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. A median closing price of $600,000 puts it at roughly 152 percent of the middle figure for this list. 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. Measured against local pay it is one of the harder counties on this list to buy into, at 8.3 times median household income. Property crime is low too, at 573 per 100,000, the bottom quarter of this list and 0.5 times the median comparable US county. For prices at street level, see Sandpoint, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
3. Kootenai County
Kootenai records 178 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the lowest quarter of the Idaho counties measured here. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. Homes changed hands at a median $579,789, around 147 percent of what the rest of this list recorded. Safe and expensive is the usual pairing on this list, and this is one of its clearest cases. Its property rate, 681 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties. The median rental listing asks $2,100 a month. Resideline publishes a separate page for Coeur D Alene, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
4. Bingham County
At 214 violent offenses per 100,000, Bingham sits in the middle range 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 $374,000, close to the middle of this list. Local incomes go further here than almost anywhere else on this list, with homes at 5.0 times median household income. Property crime is low, at 470 per 100,000, the bottom quarter of this list and 0.4 times the median comparable US county. The median rental listing asks $1,295 a month.
5. Ada County
Ada's violent crime rate is 217 per 100,000 residents, the middle range among the Idaho counties Resideline can measure. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Buyers there paid a median of $546,890, some 138 percent of the level across the counties measured. Median household income is $91,898, roughly 123 percent of the level across this list. Asking rents of $2,175 a month against that price put it in the top quarter of this list for gross return. Its property rate, 604 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties. For prices at street level, see Boise, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
6. Bonneville County
Police in Bonneville reported 251 violent offenses per 100,000 people, putting it in the middle range of this list. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. The median closed price, $393,000, sits near the center of the counties measured. Local incomes go further here than almost anywhere else on this list, with homes at 4.7 times median household income. Its property rate of 774 per 100,000 is in the top quarter here, and 0.7 times the median comparable US county. The median rental listing asks $1,450 a month. Resideline publishes a separate page for Idaho Falls, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
7. Twin Falls County
Twin Falls's violent crime rate is 267 per 100,000 residents, the middle range among the Idaho counties Resideline can measure. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. At $360,000, its median closed price is unremarkable against the rest of this list. Against local incomes it is among the most affordable counties measured, at 4.9 times median household income. Asking rents of $1,625 a month against that price put it in the top quarter of this list for gross return. Property offenses run at 739 per 100,000, in the middle of this list.
8. Bannock County
Police in Bannock reported 270 violent offenses per 100,000 people, putting it in the highest quarter of this list. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Homes there closed at a median of $359,900, close to the middle of this list. Its property rate of 1,261 per 100,000 is in the top quarter here, and 1.1 times the median comparable US county. The median rental listing asks $1,099 a month. For prices at street level, see Pocatello, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
9. Canyon County
At 344 violent offenses per 100,000, Canyon sits in the highest quarter of the places on this list. That is 1.4 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the Idaho statewide rate of 233 per 100,000 in the same data. The median closed price, $424,990, sits near the center of the counties measured. Asking rents of $1,695 a month against that price put it in the top quarter of this list for gross return. Property offenses run at 595 per 100,000, in the middle of this list. Resideline publishes a separate page for Nampa, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
Does safety set the price in Idaho?
There is a gap here that income alone does not close. The safest third of these counties runs 61 percent above the highest-crime third on price, while earning only 2 percent less. Our national model needs density as well as income to explain gaps like this one, and this page does not test density, so treat the rest as unexplained rather than as a crime premium.
That matches what we found nationally: across 688 counties, once income and other county characteristics are controlled for, a crime rate stops predicting home prices. The full analysis is in our study of crime and 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.
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?; Idaho housing market; Safest counties in Oregon; Safest counties in Utah; Safest counties in Washington.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the safest county in Idaho?
Of the 9 Idaho counties measured here, Madison County records the lowest violent crime rate at 59 offenses per 100,000 residents, against 245 for the median comparable US county. Homes there closed at a median of $395,000 over the last 12 months.
Is this every county in Idaho?
No. It covers 9 of the state's 44 counties, the ones where police agencies report at least 90 percent of the population to the FBI, the area has at least 50,000 residents, and the resulting rate falls inside the sanity bounds we apply. Whether Resideline has enough sales there decides only whether a price is shown. No place above 150,000 residents was excluded.
Does a lower crime rate mean higher home prices?
Here the price gap is larger than the income gap, so income alone does not explain the raw difference. Comparing the safest third of these counties with the highest-crime third, the median closed price is 61 percent higher and household income 2 percent lower. Across 688 US counties we found that once income and other county characteristics are controlled for, a county's crime rate stops predicting its home prices. At the scale of a block, the research says violent crime does lower nearby values.
Is this crime rate for my neighborhood?
No. The FBI publishes these figures for whole counties, so every part of a county carries the same number here, from its densest district to its farmland. It is useful for narrowing a search and not a substitute for looking at a specific address.
Are these rents asking rents or lease rents?
They are the median asking rent on rental listings in the county over the last 12 months. That is what landlords advertised, a guide to the market rather than a lease figure.
About the author
Jeffrey Batista
Jeffrey Batista is the founder of Resideline, a real estate technology company building institutional grade valuation and investment analysis tools for real estate investors.
A software engineer with more than 10 years of experience, Jeffrey has worked across full stack development, infrastructure, data engineering, machine learning, and large scale systems. He left his engineering career to build Resideline full time.
Jeffrey is also a real estate investor with nearly a decade of hands on experience buying, renovating, managing, and analyzing residential properties. His experience on both sides of the industry, as an engineer and an investor, led him to build Resideline after seeing how fragmented and outdated many of the tools available to individual investors were.
Today, he leads the development of Resideline's proprietary data infrastructure, automated valuation models, rental analytics, and investment underwriting technology.