Cupertino crime by year: the California DOJ counts
The California Department of Justice publishes the crimes that every law enforcement agency in the state reports each year. Cupertino has no police department of its own, but the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office reports the city's crimes to the state under the name Cupertino, so the city has its own row in the file. The table shows the last ten years in that file, which runs to 2025.
| Year | Violent crimes | Property crimes | Burglaries | Vehicle thefts | Larceny-thefts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 71 | 997 | 268 | 68 | 661 |
| 2017 | 77 | 970 | 164 | 50 | 756 |
| 2018 | 72 | 956 | 183 | 53 | 720 |
| 2019 | 55 | 1,018 | 175 | 40 | 803 |
| 2020 | 69 | 830 | 196 | 53 | 581 |
| 2021 | 56 | 775 | 156 | 61 | 558 |
| 2022 | 66 | 758 | 161 | 62 | 535 |
| 2023 | 59 | 692 | 119 | 48 | 525 |
| 2024 | 63 | 883 | 133 | 37 | 713 |
| 2025 | 41 | 845 | 171 | 47 | 627 |
Source: California DOJ OpenJustice, Crimes and Clearances with Arson, 1985-2025. Violent crime is homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Property crime is burglary, motor vehicle theft and larceny-theft.
What the Cupertino trend shows
Violent crime stayed in a narrow band, between 55 and 77 a year from 2016 to 2024, then fell to 41 in 2025, the lowest in the ten years shown (no homicides, 11 rapes, 9 robberies and 21 aggravated assaults). Property crime fell from 1,018 in 2019 to 692 in 2023, then rose to 883 in 2024, an increase of about 28% in one year, almost all of it larceny-theft (525 to 713). It eased to 845 in 2025. Burglaries in 2025 (171) were about a third below the 2016 count (268), and vehicle thefts (47) were near the low end of the decade.
How many Cupertino cases were solved
The same file counts clearances, meaning cases closed by an arrest or by exceptional means. In 2025 the Sheriff's Office cleared 23 of Cupertino's 41 violent crimes and 124 of its 845 property crimes. Clearance counts in a year can include crimes reported in earlier years, so treat them as a rough guide rather than a solve rate for 2025 cases.
Cupertino crime rates compared with nearby cities and California
Raw counts mislead when cities differ in size, so we divided each 2025 count by population. We used the Census Bureau's American Community Survey 2020-2024 five-year population for each city, the same source for every row, and the statewide DOJ total for California.
| Place | Population (ACS 2020-2024) | Violent crimes 2025 | Violent per 1,000 | Property crimes 2025 | Property per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cupertino | 58,566 | 41 | 0.70 | 845 | 14.43 |
| Saratoga | 30,319 | 20 | 0.66 | 146 | 4.82 |
| Los Altos | 30,698 | 11 | 0.36 | 314 | 10.23 |
| Sunnyvale | 154,236 | 293 | 1.90 | 2,895 | 18.77 |
| California | 39,287,377 | 170,397 | 4.34 | 705,925 | 17.97 |
Reading the Cupertino comparison
Cupertino's violent crime rate in 2025 was under a fifth of the statewide rate and less than half of Sunnyvale's. Its property crime rate was closer to the state figure and higher than Saratoga's or Los Altos's. Part of the gap may reflect the mix of land: Cupertino has large retail centers, offices and a community college along Stevens Creek Boulevard and De Anza Boulevard, and shoplifting and thefts from cars there count against the city's population just as home burglaries do. A rate per resident says nothing about which streets the crimes happened on.
What the Sheriff's Office publishes for Cupertino
The City of Cupertino contracts with the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office for policing. According to the city, the Sheriff's West Valley Division, based at 1601 S. De Anza Blvd., Suite 148, allocates 28 deputies to Cupertino: 21 patrol deputies giving round-the-clock coverage, four traffic officers, two school resource officers and one deputy for school-related incidents. The same division also covers Saratoga, Los Altos Hills and unincorporated western Santa Clara County.
The Cupertino Crime Dashboard
The city's online dashboard lets you filter more than ten years of incidents by crime type and year, and see Sheriff response times by call priority. The city warns that reporting delays and data entry errors can cause discrepancies, so use it as a general reference. San Jose Spotlight, citing the dashboard in January 2025, reported 741 criminal incidents in Cupertino in 2024, the lowest in 12 years, against a 2019 peak of 1,112.
Monthly Cupertino crime summaries
The city's Crime Summaries page posts monthly counts by category from 2020 on. For residential burglary it lists 96 cases in 2020, 68 in 2023, 78 in 2024 and 102 in 2025. Vehicle burglaries went from 188 in 2020 to a low of 109 in 2023 and back up to 191 in 2025. Identity theft, forgery and fraud was the largest category in 2024, at 184; in 2025 vehicle burglary (191) passed it (170). These are Sheriff report counts and use different categories from the DOJ file, so do not add or compare the two sets line by line.
Weekly Cupertino crime reports by beat
The same page posts a weekly report, most recently for October 19 to 25, 2026. Incidents are tagged by Sheriff patrol beat, C1 to C9, and a beat map shows which part of the city each covers. The weekly reports leave out domestic violence, sex crimes, child and elder abuse, missing persons and mental health calls, so they undercount some offenses on purpose.
Why the Cupertino numbers do not match
You will see different totals for the same year depending on the source. The DOJ file counts only the eight Part I offenses that every agency reports in the same way, and it adds robbery and assault into a violent total. The city dashboard counts incidents in Sheriff categories that include fraud, vandalism and grand theft. News stories and private crime-score sites often mix the two, or estimate figures for small areas. When a number is quoted to you, ask which source, which year and which categories it covers.
None of these sources supports a ranking of Cupertino neighborhoods. The DOJ data is citywide only, and the city's beat reports are a list of incidents rather than rates. We do not rank areas of Cupertino by crime, and you should be wary of any site that does without saying how.
How to check crime near a Cupertino address
Read the weekly reports for the beat
Find the address on the Sheriff beat map, then read the last two or three months of weekly reports for that beat. You will see the kinds of incidents logged near the street, such as car break-ins at shopping centers or package thefts, with the street and date.
Use the dashboard filters
On the Cupertino Crime Dashboard, filter by crime type and year to see whether a category such as residential burglary is rising or falling citywide before you judge one street.
Call the West Valley Division
For questions about a specific incident, the city lists the West Valley Division at (408) 868-6600, Monday to Friday during business hours. For non-emergencies after hours the Sheriff's number is (408) 299-2311.
Check the Megan's Law site
The California DOJ's Megan's Law website maps registered sex offenders whose addresses are public. Look the address up yourself before you make an offer.
Walk the area at different times
Visit on a weekday evening and a weekend. Look at lighting, traffic on nearby arterials such as Stevens Creek Boulevard and De Anza Boulevard, and how close the home sits to retail parking lots.
Sheriff and city programs open to Cupertino homeowners
The city lists several safety programs. Its Office of Emergency Management runs Neighborhood Watch and the Block Leader Program, which organize residents street by street. The Sheriff offers vacation patrol checks while you are away, property ID, child fingerprinting and child safety seat inspections. AlertSCC sends county emergency alerts to your phone, and the city has its own email notifications. Cupertino also lists an automated license plate recognition program on its Sheriff pages; read the city's page for how the data is used and kept.
Fire, flood and earthquake checks for a Cupertino home
Crime is one kind of risk. For most owners in Cupertino, the bigger costs come from natural hazards and insurance.
- Wildfire. Homes in Cupertino's western foothills can fall in a CAL FIRE fire hazard severity zone, which affects insurance and disclosures. Check the address on the CAL FIRE map and read our wildfire zones guide.
- Flood. Stevens Creek and Regnart Creek both run through the city. Look the address up on FEMA's Flood Map Service Center.
- Earthquake. Cal OES MyHazards shows fault and liquefaction zones for an address, and our earthquake insurance guide covers the California Earthquake Authority.
- Insurance. Get a homeowners quote before you remove contingencies. See our homeowners insurance guide and the FAIR Plan guide if carriers decline.
Before you buy or rent in Cupertino: a short checklist
- Read the DOJ figures above for the citywide trend, not a single year.
- Find the beat on the Sheriff beat map and read recent weekly reports.
- Filter the city dashboard for the crime types that matter to you.
- Check the Megan's Law site for the address.
- Run the address through CAL FIRE, FEMA and MyHazards.
- Get an insurance quote early, and read the seller's disclosures closely. See our seller disclosure guide.
- For prices and the rest of the city, see our Cupertino guide, Cupertino neighborhoods and is Cupertino a good place to live.