Safest Counties in Maine: 8 Ranked (2026)
The 8 Maine 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.
Maine has 16 counties. Eight of them clear the reporting bar this page uses, and the gap between the quietest, Hancock at 25 violent offenses per 100,000, and the busiest, Androscoggin at 167, is 6.8 to one. Beside each rate sits what homes there closed at over the last 12 months, from 21,779 closing records Resideline tracked across all 8 counties.
The crime rates here are built from the 1,114,002 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 | Hancock | 25 | 616 | $405,000 | $2,000 | $75,157 |
| 2 | Aroostook | 69 | 625 | $157,500 | $950 | $54,965 |
| 3 | Oxford | 70 | 959 | $318,000 | $1,600 | $65,487 |
| 4 | Penobscot | 74 | 1,167 | $275,000 | $1,695 | $66,158 |
| 5 | Kennebec | 79 | 1,230 | $305,000 | $1,700 | $74,048 |
| 6 | York | 95 | 884 | $485,180 | $2,250 | $92,098 |
| 7 | Cumberland | 100 | 909 | $568,809 | $2,600 | $93,949 |
| 8 | Androscoggin | 167 | 1,306 | $320,000 | $1,750 | $68,642 |
A closer look at each county
1. Hancock County
Hancock records 25 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the lowest quarter of the Maine 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 $405,000 puts it at roughly 127 percent of the middle figure for this list. Buying there takes 5.4 times the median household income, a heavier lift than most of this list. Property crime is low too, at 616 per 100,000, the bottom quarter of this list and 0.5 times the median comparable US county. Asking rents run about $2,000 a month.
2. Aroostook County
Police in Aroostook reported 69 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. Homes changed hands at a median $157,500, around 49 percent of what the rest of this list recorded. Low crime is not being charged for here, which is the combination most buyers are actually hunting for. Local incomes go further here than almost anywhere else on this list, with homes at 2.9 times median household income. Asking rents of $950 a month against that price put it in the top quarter of this list for gross return.
3. Oxford County
At 70 violent offenses per 100,000, Oxford sits in the middle range of the places on this list. That is below the median comparable US county, which records 245. At $318,000, its median closed price is unremarkable against the rest of this list. Property offenses run at 959 per 100,000, in the middle of this list. Asking rents run about $1,600 a month.
4. Penobscot County
Penobscot's violent crime rate is 74 per 100,000 residents, the middle range among the Maine counties Resideline can measure. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. A median closing price of $275,000 puts it at roughly 86 percent of the middle figure for this list. 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 1,167 per 100,000, in the middle of this list.
5. Kennebec County
At 79 violent offenses per 100,000, Kennebec sits in the middle range of the places on this list. That is below the median comparable US county, which records 245. At $305,000, its median closed price is unremarkable against the rest of this list. Local incomes go further here than almost anywhere else on this list, with homes at 4.1 times median household income. Its property rate of 1,230 per 100,000 is in the top quarter here, and 1.0 times the median comparable US county. Asking rents run about $1,700 a month.
6. York County
York's violent crime rate is 95 per 100,000 residents, the middle range among the Maine counties Resideline can measure. That is below the median comparable US county, which records 245. A median closing price of $485,180 puts it at roughly 152 percent of the middle figure for this list. Median household income is $92,098, roughly 129 percent of the level across this list. Its property rate, 884 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties. The median rental listing asks $2,250 a month. For prices at street level, see Wells, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
7. Cumberland County
Cumberland records 100 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the highest quarter of the Maine counties measured here. That is below the median comparable US county, which records 245. Buyers there paid a median of $568,809, some 178 percent of the level across the counties measured. It is also among the most expensive counties measured, a reminder that a county rate and a purchase price answer different questions. Homes cost 6.1 times what the median household there earns, among the steepest ratios on this list. Property offenses run at 909 per 100,000, in the middle of this list. Resideline publishes a separate page for Portland, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
8. Androscoggin County
Androscoggin's violent crime rate is 167 per 100,000 residents, the highest quarter among the Maine counties Resideline can measure. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. The median closed price, $320,000, sits near the center of the counties measured. Theft and burglary are the larger problem: 1,306 property offenses per 100,000, 1.1 times the median comparable US county. Asking rents run about $1,750 a month. For prices at street level, see Lewiston, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
How to read this list
These figures describe whole areas. A quiet town and a rough district an hour apart carry the same number here, so the ranking is a starting point for a search rather than a description of any particular street.
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?; Maine housing market; Safest counties in New Hampshire.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the safest county in Maine?
Of the 8 Maine counties measured here, Hancock County records the lowest violent crime rate at 25 offenses per 100,000 residents, against 245 for the median comparable US county. Homes there closed at a median of $405,000 over the last 12 months.
Is this every county in Maine?
No. It covers 8 of the state's 16 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.