Safest Counties in Massachusetts: 12 Ranked (2026)
The 12 Massachusetts 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.
Massachusetts has 14 counties. Twelve of them clear the reporting bar this page uses, and the gap between the quietest, Norfolk at 177 violent offenses per 100,000, and the busiest, Suffolk at 568, is 3.2 to one. What homes closed at over the last 12 months sits beside the rate where Resideline has enough sales to publish a median: 15,445 closing records tracked in the 2 counties that clear that bar.
The crime rates here are built from the 7,047,592 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 | Norfolk | 177 | 850 | n/a | n/a | $137,533 |
| 2 | Middlesex | 200 | 976 | n/a | n/a | $132,599 |
| 3 | Essex | 228 | 745 | $680,000 | $2,550 | $102,044 |
| 4 | Hampshire | 248 | 765 | n/a | n/a | $82,817 |
| 5 | Barnstable | 249 | 662 | n/a | n/a | $88,495 |
| 6 | Plymouth | 256 | 722 | n/a | n/a | $111,910 |
| 7 | Franklin | 269 | 706 | n/a | n/a | $74,594 |
| 8 | Worcester | 276 | 719 | n/a | n/a | $96,005 |
| 9 | Bristol | 337 | 1,044 | $546,150 | $1,950 | $81,898 |
| 10 | Berkshire | 414 | 988 | n/a | n/a | $76,177 |
| 11 | Hampden | 566 | 1,729 | n/a | n/a | $71,287 |
| 12 | Suffolk | 568 | 1,939 | n/a | n/a | $95,174 |
A closer look at each county
1. Norfolk County
Norfolk's violent crime rate is 177 per 100,000 residents, the lowest quarter among the Massachusetts counties Resideline can measure. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. Households there earn a median of $137,533, about 150 percent of the median for these counties. Its property rate, 850 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties.
2. Middlesex County
Middlesex records 200 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the lowest quarter of the Massachusetts counties measured here. That is below the median comparable US county, which records 245. Median household income is $132,599, roughly 144 percent of the level across this list. Its property rate, 976 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties.
3. Essex County
Police in Essex reported 228 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. The median closed price, $680,000, sits near the center of the counties measured. Prices sit close to local earning power, at 6.7 times the median household income. Its property rate, 745 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties. The median rental listing asks $2,550 a month. Resideline publishes a separate page for Haverhill, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
4. Hampshire County
At 248 violent offenses per 100,000, Hampshire sits in the middle range of the places on this list. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Its property rate, 765 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties.
5. Barnstable County
Barnstable records 249 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the middle range of the Massachusetts counties measured here. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Its property rate is among the lowest here, 662 per 100,000, or 0.6 times the median comparable US county.
6. Plymouth County
Plymouth's violent crime rate is 256 per 100,000 residents, the middle range among the Massachusetts counties Resideline can measure. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Households there earn a median of $111,910, about 122 percent of the median for these counties. Its property rate, 722 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties.
7. Franklin County
Franklin records 269 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the middle range of the Massachusetts counties measured here. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Median household income is $74,594, roughly 81 percent of the level across this list. Its property rate is among the lowest here, 706 per 100,000, or 0.6 times the median comparable US county.
8. Worcester County
Worcester's violent crime rate is 276 per 100,000 residents, the middle range among the Massachusetts counties Resideline can measure. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Property crime is low, at 719 per 100,000, the bottom quarter of this list and 0.6 times the median comparable US county.
9. Bristol County
Bristol records 337 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the middle range of the Massachusetts counties measured here. That is 1.4 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the Massachusetts statewide rate of 298 per 100,000 in the same data. Homes there closed at a median of $546,150, close to the middle of this list. Property crime is the higher of its two figures at 1,044 per 100,000, the top quarter of this list and 0.9 times the median comparable US county. Asking rents run about $1,950 a month. For prices at street level, see Taunton, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
10. Berkshire County
Berkshire's violent crime rate is 414 per 100,000 residents, the highest quarter among the Massachusetts counties Resideline can measure. That is 1.7 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the Massachusetts statewide rate of 298 per 100,000 in the same data. Households there earn a median of $76,177, about 83 percent of the median for these counties. Property offenses run at 988 per 100,000, in the middle of this list.
11. Hampden County
At 566 violent offenses per 100,000, Hampden sits in the highest quarter of the places on this list. That is 2.3 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the Massachusetts statewide rate of 298 per 100,000 in the same data. Median household income is $71,287, roughly 78 percent of the level across this list. Property crime is the higher of its two figures at 1,729 per 100,000, the top quarter of this list and 1.5 times the median comparable US county.
12. Suffolk County
Suffolk's violent crime rate is 568 per 100,000 residents, the highest quarter among the Massachusetts counties Resideline can measure. That is 2.3 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the Massachusetts statewide rate of 298 per 100,000 in the same data. Its property rate of 1,939 per 100,000 is in the top quarter here, and 1.6 times the median comparable US county.
The large counties
Seven counties here have more than 500,000 residents. Their median violent rate is 256 per 100,000 against 269 for the smaller counties on the list, and the quietest of them is Norfolk at 177.
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?; Massachusetts housing market.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the safest county in Massachusetts?
Of the 12 Massachusetts counties measured here, Norfolk County records the lowest violent crime rate at 177 offenses per 100,000 residents, against 245 for the median comparable US county.
Is this every county in Massachusetts?
No. It covers 12 of the state's 14 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.