Safest Counties in Iowa: 10 Ranked (2026)
The 10 Iowa 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.
Iowa has 99 counties. Ten of them clear the reporting bar this page uses, and the gap between the quietest, Warren at 101 violent offenses per 100,000, and the busiest, Woodbury at 453, is 4.5 to one. Prices are shown where Resideline tracks enough closings to publish a median.
The crime rates here are built from the 1,703,968 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 | Warren | 101 | 1,180 | n/a | n/a | $101,640 |
| 2 | Story | 108 | 1,211 | n/a | n/a | $69,868 |
| 3 | Linn | 206 | 1,479 | n/a | n/a | $75,639 |
| 4 | Johnson | 239 | 1,274 | n/a | n/a | $77,124 |
| 5 | Dubuque | 286 | 1,060 | n/a | n/a | $80,355 |
| 6 | Black Hawk | 295 | 1,815 | n/a | n/a | $70,553 |
| 7 | Polk | 353 | 1,886 | n/a | n/a | $82,960 |
| 8 | Pottawattamie | 412 | 1,747 | n/a | n/a | $73,799 |
| 9 | Scott | 436 | 2,083 | n/a | n/a | $78,991 |
| 10 | Woodbury | 453 | 2,443 | n/a | n/a | $76,974 |
A closer look at each county
1. Warren County
Police in Warren reported 101 violent offenses per 100,000 people, putting it in the lowest quarter of this list. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. Median household income is $101,640, roughly 132 percent of the level across this list. Its property rate is also among the lowest here, 1,180 per 100,000, or 1.0 times the median comparable US county.
2. Story County
Story's violent crime rate is 108 per 100,000 residents, the lowest quarter among the Iowa counties Resideline can measure. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. Property crime is low too, at 1,211 per 100,000, the bottom quarter of this list and 1.0 times the median comparable US county.
3. Linn County
At 206 violent offenses per 100,000, Linn 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. Property offenses run at 1,479 per 100,000, in the middle of this list.
4. Johnson County
Johnson records 239 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the middle range of the Iowa counties measured here. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Its property rate, 1,274 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties.
5. Dubuque County
Police in Dubuque reported 286 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. Its property rate is among the lowest here, 1,060 per 100,000, or 0.9 times the median comparable US county.
6. Black Hawk County
Black Hawk records 295 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the middle range of the Iowa counties measured here. That is 1.2 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, though still below the Iowa statewide rate of 308 per 100,000 in the same data. Its property rate, 1,815 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties.
7. Polk County
Police in Polk reported 353 violent offenses per 100,000 people, putting it in the middle range of this list. That is 1.4 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the Iowa statewide rate of 308 per 100,000 in the same data. Property offenses run at 1,886 per 100,000, in the middle of this list.
8. Pottawattamie County
At 412 violent offenses per 100,000, Pottawattamie sits in the middle range of the places on this list. That is 1.7 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the Iowa statewide rate of 308 per 100,000 in the same data. Property offenses run at 1,747 per 100,000, in the middle of this list.
9. Scott County
Scott's violent crime rate is 436 per 100,000 residents, the highest quarter among the Iowa counties Resideline can measure. That is 1.8 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the Iowa statewide rate of 308 per 100,000 in the same data. Theft and burglary are the larger problem: 2,083 property offenses per 100,000, 1.8 times the median comparable US county.
10. Woodbury County
At 453 violent offenses per 100,000, Woodbury sits in the highest quarter of the places on this list. That is 1.8 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the Iowa statewide rate of 308 per 100,000 in the same data. Its property rate of 2,443 per 100,000 is in the top quarter here, and 2.1 times the median comparable US county.
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?; Iowa housing market.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the safest county in Iowa?
Of the 10 Iowa counties measured here, Warren County records the lowest violent crime rate at 101 offenses per 100,000 residents, against 245 for the median comparable US county.
Is this every county in Iowa?
No. It covers 10 of the state's 99 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.
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.