Federal Way Reports 21% Crime Drop in First Half of 2026

Federal Way reported a 21% decline in overall crime during the first six months of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, according to preliminary data released by the city July 15.

The figures cover incidents inside Federal Way city limits from January through June. The largest category-level decline was in motor-vehicle theft, which fell 54% from the first half of 2025. Residential burglary dropped 51%, commercial burglary fell 47%, and murder was down 43%.

Robbery declined 21%, matching the overall crime reduction, while shots-fired incidents fell 22%. The results point to broad reductions across several crimes that affect household security, businesses and public concerns about violence.

Vehicle theft shows the steepest longer-term decline

Motor-vehicle theft also has posted the sharpest change over the longer period cited by the city. Federal Way recorded 2,305 vehicle-theft incidents in 2023, compared with 471 in 2025. That is an approximately 80% decline between those years.

The first-half burglary figures included a decrease in residential incidents from 45 during the first half of 2025 to 22 during the first half of 2026, according to the Federal Way Mirror. That incident count corresponds with the 51% decrease reported by the city.

The city also reported that overall crime declined 10.8% from 2023 to 2024 and another 27% from 2024 to 2025. The preliminary first-half results continue that reported downward trend into 2026, although the periods being compared are not full calendar years.

City credits policing and partnerships

The City of Federal Way attributed the reductions to data-driven policing, targeted enforcement, community partnerships, criminal-justice partnerships and public-safety investments. Those are the factors the city identified while announcing the results.

The numbers show a correlation between the reported declines and the period in which those strategies were in use, but they do not establish that one policing tactic caused the changes. Crime totals can reflect multiple conditions, including enforcement activity, reporting patterns and changes in the types of incidents occurring in the city.

For residents, the reported reductions are most directly relevant to vehicle owners, households, businesses and people concerned about gunfire-related incidents. A 54% decline in vehicle theft changes the scale of one of the city’s most visible property-crime problems compared with the 2023 total. The burglary figures likewise indicate fewer reported break-ins affecting homes and commercial properties during the first half of the year.

What comes next

The figures are preliminary and represent only the first six months of 2026. The city’s July 15 announcement did not present a final full-year total, so later data will be needed to determine whether the first-half pattern continues through December.

That later comparison will also give the city and the Federal Way Police Department a basis for evaluating whether the reductions are sustained across the rest of the year. For now, the first-half report provides a current measure of crime inside Federal Way and a benchmark for the public-safety strategies the city says contributed to the decline.