How many car thefts are there in Ottawa?
Ottawa, ON recorded 1,443 car thefts in 2025, the most recent complete year — a rate of 141.8 per 100,000 residents.
Theft of a motor vehicle. Ottawa residents also search for this category as stolen cars, vehicle thefts, auto thefts and cars stolen — all of those refer to the same police-reported offences counted on this page.
These figures cover 8,424 car thefts recorded in Ottawa between September 2021 and September 2026 — every incident Ottawa Police Service Community Safety Data Portal has published in that window. The first year is partial — incidents past the retention window are removed, so the record starts part-way through 2021 rather than on January 1.
Ottawa car thefts by year, 2021–2026
Ottawa car thefts peaked in 2023 with 2,115. The complete years here are 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 — those are the ones directly comparable to each other. Pick a year for its own monthly breakdown, time-of-day pattern and areas.
* Partial year — not directly comparable to the complete years above.
What time of day do car thefts happen in Ottawa?
Across the whole period, Ottawa car thefts cluster in the evening (6pm–12am) window, which accounts for 40% of them. The busiest individual hour is 10pm.
The spike at midnight in the chart below is a recording artifact, not a real pattern: when the time of an incident isn't known, the source system stores it as 00:00. It's left in the chart because removing it would misstate the totals, but it's excluded from the busiest-hour figure above.
Hover a bar for the exact count in that hour.
What day of the week do car thefts happen in Ottawa?
Car thefts in Ottawa are spread fairly evenly across the week. Wednesday is marginally the busiest at 15%, but an even split would be 14.3% — the gap isn't big enough to call a pattern.
What time of year do car thefts peak in Ottawa?
Every year stacked together, so this is seasonality rather than a trend. November is the busiest month for car thefts in Ottawa with 885 across the whole period, and February is the quietest with 564.
Where do car thefts happen in Ottawa?
Overbrook - McArthur records the most car thefts of any area in Ottawa, with 337 — 4% of the city total across the whole period.
Ottawa car thefts: common questions
How many car thefts are there in Ottawa?
Ottawa, ON recorded 1,443 car thefts in 2025, the most recent complete year — a rate of 141.8 per 100,000 residents. These figures cover 8,424 car thefts recorded in Ottawa between September 2021 and September 2026 — every incident Ottawa Police Service Community Safety Data Portal has published in that window.
Are car thefts going up or down in Ottawa?
Ottawa car thefts peaked in 2023 with 2,115. The most recent figure is 737 in 2026 so far, which covers a partial year. The complete years in this data are 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, which are the ones directly comparable to each other.
What time of day do most car thefts happen in Ottawa?
Most Ottawa car thefts happen in the evening (6pm–12am) window, which accounts for 40% of all of them. The busiest individual hour is 10pm. 12pm is excluded from that figure: it is the time a records system writes when the real time is unknown, so it collects incidents that did not happen then.
Where do most car thefts happen in Ottawa?
Overbrook - McArthur records the most car thefts of any area in Ottawa, with 337 (4% of the city total), followed by Portobello South (276) and Stittsville (270).
What day of the week do most car thefts happen in Ottawa?
Car thefts in Ottawa are spread fairly evenly across the week. Wednesday is marginally the busiest at 15% of the total, but an even split would be 14.3%, so the difference is not meaningful.
What time of year do car thefts peak in Ottawa?
Adding every year together, November is the busiest month for car thefts in Ottawa (885 across the whole period) and February is the quietest (564).
How common are car thefts compared to other crime in Ottawa?
Auto theft makes up 5% of all crime recorded in Ottawa over this period — 8,424 of 167,564 incidents.
What is the car theft rate in Ottawa?
Ottawa recorded 141.8 car thefts per 100,000 residents in 2025, based on a population of 1,017,449. Rates are only calculated for complete years, since a partial year isn't comparable.
What period does this Ottawa car theft data cover?
These figures cover 8,424 car thefts recorded in Ottawa between September 2021 and September 2026 — every incident Ottawa Police Service Community Safety Data Portal has published in that window. The earliest year is partial because incidents older than the retention window are removed, so it starts part-way through the year rather than on January 1. Counts reflect what the portal published — a category a service doesn't publish is missing, which is not the same as zero.
Sourced from Ottawa Police Service Community Safety Data Portal. Counts reflect incidents the portal published and may differ from figures released elsewhere — missing is not the same as zero.