Our guides
Safest area to stay in Paris
The safest area to stay in Paris: no official source ranks tourist areas, so we publish the 2025 SSMSI figures by arrondissement, with their caveat. Checked October 2026.
No official source ranks the tourist areas of Paris by safety, and no police authority publishes a list of areas to avoid that we could read. Anyone who offers you a “safest area” without a source is giving an opinion. What exists is a public statistics base from the interior ministry’s statistical service (SSMSI) with the offences recorded by the police and the gendarmerie in each arrondissement, and the travel advice that foreign ministries publish. This page presents both, with their limits, and does not turn them into a ranking.
How to read the figures
The table gives, for each arrondissement and for 2025, the rate per 1,000 inhabitants in four categories and, in brackets, the number of offences recorded. The rate is calculated on the resident population (2023 census), so it does not count visitors. There are two reasons to be careful.
First, the denominator is the number of residents. In the central arrondissements, which receive visitors, workers and people out in the evening, the rate rises mechanically above what residents live with, because the people present are far more numerous than the people who live there. Second, the table is not an index of risk for a traveller: a figure for a resident population says nothing about the risk a visitor runs on a given street at a given hour.
| Arrondissement | Physical violence outside the family | Violent theft without a weapon | Theft without violence against persons | Home burglary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 31.0 (469) | 20.4 (309) | 311.6 (4,710) | 5.2 (72) |
| 2nd | 8.1 (161) | 7.3 (145) | 118.0 (2,341) | 7.2 (125) |
| 3rd | 6.0 (193) | 4.6 (149) | 61.0 (1,962) | 7.0 (184) |
| 4th | 6.7 (182) | 4.9 (134) | 93.0 (2,542) | 5.8 (133) |
| 5th | 4.2 (233) | 1.5 (84) | 48.5 (2,679) | 6.6 (262) |
| 6th | 4.5 (181) | 3.0 (122) | 66.9 (2,702) | 7.1 (226) |
| 7th | 4.3 (205) | 2.6 (124) | 46.4 (2,226) | 6.6 (260) |
| 8th | 14.4 (510) | 7.2 (253) | 144.3 (5,095) | 8.8 (242) |
| 9th | 5.5 (314) | 6.1 (350) | 88.7 (5,078) | 3.4 (139) |
| 10th | 13.6 (1,142) | 9.7 (812) | 91.7 (7,692) | 3.6 (217) |
| 11th | 4.3 (593) | 3.1 (424) | 39.6 (5,476) | 3.0 (306) |
| 12th | 6.6 (909) | 3.8 (522) | 50.1 (6,916) | 3.5 (311) |
| 13th | 4.3 (771) | 2.3 (408) | 33.6 (6,090) | 3.3 (354) |
| 14th | 3.8 (521) | 1.6 (222) | 33.4 (4,562) | 4.3 (373) |
| 15th | 3.8 (865) | 1.5 (335) | 25.0 (5,741) | 6.3 (956) |
| 16th | 2.7 (434) | 2.1 (332) | 28.8 (4,586) | 6.0 (621) |
| 17th | 3.2 (509) | 2.0 (314) | 28.3 (4,507) | 5.1 (552) |
| 18th | 5.6 (1,022) | 6.4 (1,177) | 51.0 (9,342) | 5.9 (731) |
| 19th | 6.1 (1,092) | 3.9 (697) | 38.8 (6,940) | 5.4 (546) |
| 20th | 4.3 (789) | 1.9 (355) | 20.2 (3,737) | 4.3 (462) |
| All of Paris | 5.3 (11,095) | 3.5 (7,268) | 45.1 (94,924) | 5.1 (7,072) |
The categories are those of the base: physical violence outside the family circle, violent theft without a weapon, theft without violence against persons (pickpocketing and snatching without force) and home burglary. They count what is recorded, and recording depends on people reporting offences.
What the figures show for the whole city
For Paris as a whole, the base records 94,924 victims of theft without violence in 2025, which is 4.2% fewer than in 2024 and 41.5% fewer than in 2019. Violent thefts without a weapon number 7,268 in 2025, against 19,141 in 2019. In 2025, the city counts 45.1 victims of theft without violence per 1,000 residents, and 3.5 of violent theft without a weapon.
Photo: Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Across the table, the highest rates for theft without violence are in central arrondissements, which is consistent with the visitor effect described above. The 1st arrondissement reads 311.6 per 1,000 residents, the 8th 144.3, the 2nd 118.0 and the 4th 93.0, while the 20th reads 20.2. We do not draw from this that the 1st is dangerous or the 20th safe.
What foreign ministries say
- United Kingdom (Foreign Office, page updated 11 August 2026). Pickpockets work in the metro, the RER and the big stations, sometimes in a group in which one person distracts and another steals. Several serious assaults have been reported on the RER B (Roissy, Orly, Gare du Nord) and on the RER D (Stade de France).
- Japan (foreign ministry, sheet of 22 May 2026). No risk level is set for France on 2 October 2026. Pickpocketing and bag theft are described as very frequent in Paris, along with fake police officers, forced sales of souvenirs and street shell games. It cites the Eiffel Tower, the Trocadéro, the Louvre, the Tuileries, the Champs-Élysées, and the metro and RER. It also classes pleasure districts, “in particular the Pigalle sector”, as high-crime zones, with touts and bars that overcharge; it gives no hour and no street.
- South Korea. France is at level 1 of 4 (vigilance), with very many pickpockets in tourist sites and metro stations, and thefts by window-smashing on the road between Roissy and Paris, in the Landy tunnel.
Most of these warnings name places, stations and gestures. Of the three ministries, only the Japanese one names a district, Pigalle, and it gives no street or hour. The places that sources do single out are covered on areas to avoid in Paris.
Photo: Romainbehar, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
What to do with this when choosing
Use the table to check a specific arrondissement only after reading the caveat, and do not use it to eliminate a district. The Foreign Office asks travellers not to let themselves be distracted around tourist sites and cash machines, and reports several serious assaults on the RER B (Roissy, Orly, Gare du Nord) and the RER D (Stade de France). The Louvre’s own site warns against tickets bought from street vendors.
For the choice of area itself, the home page compares thirteen areas by travel time, evening life and hotel range; where to stay in Paris for the first time turns that into an itinerary.