Safest Counties and Cities in Maryland: 18 Ranked (2026)
The 18 Maryland county equivalents 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.
Maryland has 24 county equivalents. Eighteen of them clear the reporting bar this page uses, and the gap between the quietest, Queen Anne's at 117 violent offenses per 100,000, and the busiest, Baltimore at 1,351, is 12 to one. Beside each rate sits what homes there closed at over the last 12 months, from 89,482 closing records Resideline tracked across all 18 counties.
Baltimore is an independent city and a county equivalent in the FBI and Census data, so one of the 18 places ranked here is a city rather than a county, and it is marked as one.
The crime rates here are built from the 6,085,842 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 or city | Violent per 100k | Property per 100k | Median closed price | Median asking rent | Median income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Queen Anne's | 117 | 866 | $525,000 | $2,550 | $112,621 |
| 2 | Howard | 119 | 1,493 | $580,000 | $2,800 | $149,980 |
| 3 | Carroll | 127 | 744 | $465,000 | $2,100 | $114,927 |
| 4 | Calvert | 138 | 548 | $471,500 | $2,550 | $121,798 |
| 5 | Allegany | 171 | 1,465 | $160,000 | $1,050 | $63,215 |
| 6 | Harford | 173 | 816 | $365,365 | $2,250 | $110,665 |
| 7 | Montgomery | 174 | 1,562 | $598,144 | $2,850 | $138,870 |
| 8 | Frederick | 211 | 962 | $474,936 | $2,500 | $121,380 |
| 9 | St. Mary's | 266 | 1,155 | $420,000 | $2,250 | $116,969 |
| 10 | Charles | 272 | 982 | $433,895 | $2,400 | $125,985 |
| 11 | Cecil | 284 | 1,384 | $350,000 | $1,950 | $89,501 |
| 12 | Prince George's | 301 | 2,159 | $419,999 | $2,515 | $97,634 |
| 13 | Washington | 308 | 1,223 | $303,250 | $1,500 | $77,632 |
| 14 | Worcester | 326 | 1,826 | $416,084 | $2,000 | $81,711 |
| 15 | Anne Arundel | 359 | 1,679 | $479,591 | $2,750 | $127,042 |
| 16 | Wicomico | 389 | 1,339 | $265,000 | $1,600 | $67,786 |
| 17 | Baltimore | 411 | 2,427 | $346,020 | $2,350 | $87,865 |
| 18 | Baltimore (city) | 1,351 | 4,008 | $210,000 | $1,700 | $63,451 |
A closer look at the 12 safest counties
1. Queen Anne's County
Police in Queen Anne's reported 117 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. A median closing price of $525,000 puts it at roughly 125 percent of the middle figure for this list. Low crime and high prices arrive together here, which is the arrangement buyers assume is universal and is not. A typical home costs 4.7 years of the median household's income, near the top of this list. Its property rate is also among the lowest here, 866 per 100,000, or 0.7 times the median comparable US county.
2. Howard County
Howard's violent crime rate is 119 per 100,000 residents, the lowest quarter among the Maryland counties Resideline can measure. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. Homes changed hands at a median $580,000, around 138 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. Median household income is $149,980, roughly 134 percent of the level across this list. Property offenses run at 1,493 per 100,000, in the middle of this list. For prices at street level, see Columbia, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
3. Carroll County
Police in Carroll reported 127 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 there closed at a median of $465,000, close to the middle of this list. Property crime is low too, at 744 per 100,000, the bottom quarter of this list and 0.6 times the median comparable US county. The median rental listing asks $2,100 a month. Resideline publishes a separate page for Westminster, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
4. Calvert County
Calvert's violent crime rate is 138 per 100,000 residents, the lowest quarter among the Maryland counties Resideline can measure. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. The median home closed at $471,500, roughly 112 percent of the middle figure for these counties. Property crime is low too, at 548 per 100,000, the bottom quarter of this list and 0.5 times the median comparable US county. The median rental listing asks $2,550 a month.
5. Allegany County
Allegany records 171 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the lowest quarter of the Maryland counties measured here. That is below the median comparable US county, which records 245. Buyers there paid a median of $160,000, some 38 percent of the level across the counties measured. Low crime is not being charged for here, which is the combination most buyers are actually hunting for. Against local incomes it is among the most affordable counties measured, at 2.5 times median household income. Asking rents of $1,050 a month against that price put it in the top quarter of this list for gross return.
6. Harford County
Police in Harford reported 173 violent offenses per 100,000 people, putting it in the middle range of this list. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. Homes there closed at a median of $365,365, about 87 percent of the median across this list. Against local incomes it is among the most affordable counties measured, at 3.3 times median household income. Asking rents of $2,250 a month against that price put it in the top quarter of this list for gross return. Its property rate is among the lowest here, 816 per 100,000, or 0.7 times the median comparable US county. For prices at street level, see Bel Air, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
7. Montgomery County
At 174 violent offenses per 100,000, Montgomery sits in the middle range of the places on this list. That is below the median comparable US county, which records 245. The median home closed at $598,144, roughly 142 percent of the middle figure for these counties. Homes cost 4.3 times what the median household there earns, among the steepest ratios on this list. Property offenses run at 1,562 per 100,000, in the middle of this list. The median rental listing asks $2,850 a month. Resideline publishes a separate page for Silver Spring, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
8. Frederick County
Frederick's violent crime rate is 211 per 100,000 residents, the middle range among the Maryland counties Resideline can measure. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Homes changed hands at a median $474,936, around 113 percent of what the rest of this list recorded. Property crime is low, at 962 per 100,000, the bottom quarter of this list and 0.8 times the median comparable US county. Asking rents run about $2,500 a month. For prices at street level, see Frederick, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
9. St. Mary's County
St. Mary's records 266 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the middle range of the Maryland counties measured here. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. The median closed price, $420,000, sits near the center of the counties measured. Against local incomes it is among the most affordable counties measured, at 3.6 times median household income. Its property rate, 1,155 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties. The median rental listing asks $2,250 a month.
10. Charles County
Police in Charles reported 272 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. Homes there closed at a median of $433,895, close to the middle of this list. A typical home costs 3.4 years of the median household's income, the low end of this list. Its property rate, 982 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties. Asking rents run about $2,400 a month. Resideline publishes a separate page for Waldorf, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
11. Cecil County
At 284 violent offenses per 100,000, Cecil sits in the middle range of the places on this list. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. The median home closed at $350,000, roughly 83 percent of the middle figure for these counties. Households there earn a median of $89,501, about 80 percent of the median for these counties. Its property rate, 1,384 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties. The median rental listing asks $1,950 a month. For prices at street level, see Elkton, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
12. Prince George's County
Police in Prince George's reported 301 violent offenses per 100,000 people, putting it in the middle range of this list. That is 1.2 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, though still below the Maryland statewide rate of 367 per 100,000 in the same data. At $419,999, its median closed price is unremarkable against the rest of this list. The gap between local wages and local prices is wide: 4.3 times household income, in the top quarter of these counties. Its property rate of 2,159 per 100,000 is in the top quarter here, and 1.8 times the median comparable US county. Asking rents run about $2,515 a month. Resideline publishes a separate page for Hyattsville, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
Does safety set the price in Maryland?
Somewhat, and less than you would expect. The safest third of these counties runs 44 percent above the highest-crime third on price. The same safe places also earn 43 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.
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.
Where safety and affordability overlap in Maryland
Four of the 6 safest counties on this list also cost no more than the list's median once prices are set against local incomes: Howard (119 violent per 100,000, a home at 3.9 times median household income); Calvert (138 violent per 100,000, a home at 3.9 times median household income); Allegany (171 violent per 100,000, a home at 2.5 times median household income); Harford (173 violent per 100,000, a home at 3.3 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
Five counties here have more than 500,000 residents. Their median violent rate is 359 per 100,000 against 211 for the smaller counties on the list, and the quietest of them is Montgomery at 174. It closes homes at a median of $598,144.
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?; Maryland housing market; Safest counties in Pennsylvania; Safest counties in Virginia; Safest counties in West Virginia.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the safest county in Maryland?
Of the 18 Maryland county equivalents measured here, Queen Anne's County records the lowest violent crime rate at 117 offenses per 100,000 residents, against 245 for the median comparable US county. Homes there closed at a median of $525,000 over the last 12 months.
Is this every county in Maryland?
No. It covers 18 of the state's 24 county equivalents, 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?
Less than most people assume. Comparing the safest third of these counties with the highest-crime third, the median closed price is 44 percent higher and household income 43 percent higher. 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.