Is Lima safe? What the figures actually say

"Is Lima dangerous?" has no answer at the scale of a city of ten million. The useful question, when you are considering buying there, is narrower: what exactly are we talking about, who is targeted, and what changes from one district to the next.

This guide draws on data from INEI, Peru's statistics institute, on decrees published in the official gazette, and on the travel advice of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. The figures are dated, because they move fast. This is neither a defence nor a warning: it is the framework that was missing in order to decide.

What the figures say, and what they hide

Two numbers sum up the subject better than any narrative. At national urban level, INEI measures real victimisation of 26.8% over the rolling half-year from December 2024 to May 2025: a little more than one person in four experienced a criminal act during the year. Over the same period, the perception of insecurity reaches 89.9% in Lima Metropolitana.

The gap between the two is not a measurement error, it is the subject itself. A city where nine residents in ten feel threatened and one in four actually is describes itself correctly neither as "dangerous" nor as "overblown".

An order of magnitude is more useful than a precise figure: over the rolling half-year from July to December 2025, INEI records in Lima and Callao 11 people per 100 aged 15 and over who were victims of more than one criminal act. Crime in Lima is above all repetitive and opportunistic, not exceptional.

The comparison nobody makes: Lima and European capitals

A European reading these figures mechanically compares them to a benchmark they never examine: their own city, which they are simply used to. The comparison deserves to be made properly, and it gives two opposite answers depending on what is measured.

On acquisitive crime, the kind you actually meet day to day, European capitals are in no position to lecture. On the latest available European comparison, Paris comes first among the continent's capitals with 611 robberies per 100,000 inhabitants, ahead of Barcelona at 398 and Brussels at 381. Across the Union, recorded thefts rose 21.4% since 2021, passing 5.2 million offences in 2024. In Brussels, pickpocketing jumped 19.6% in 2023 alone, and the central pedestrian zone recorded more than 3,100 thefts in eight months of 2024.

In other words, the bag snatched on a terrace, the phone gone in the metro and the city-centre pickpocket are European realities, and rising ones, that nobody presents as a reason not to buy in Paris or Barcelona. A resident of a residential district in Lima applies exactly the same reflexes as in those cities, no more and no less.

On lethal violence, however, the gap is real and it would be dishonest to play it down. Lima Metropolitana shows a homicide rate of 11.4 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2025, against a European Union average of 0.88 per 100,000 in 2024. Europe's worst-affected capitals remain far behind: Brussels at 3.5 and Marseille at 5.5.

The useful conclusion is therefore neither that Lima is as safe as Geneva, nor that it is a war zone. It is that the risk is of a different nature: more organised violence, in spheres a foreign owner does not enter, and an ordinary level of petty crime that, in the good districts, does not exceed what people accept without a second thought in a large European city.

Extortion: a real phenomenon, a very specific victim profile

What has really changed since 2024 is not bag-snatching, it is organised extortion. In 2025, Peru recorded 26,585 extortion complaints, of which 11,192 for Lima Metropolitana alone, a 44% increase in the capital. That is the defining fact of the period, and it is what drives the headlines.

It is worth looking at who is targeted, because the profile is very specific. The most affected sector is urban transport: among victims recorded in that sector, 67.5% are drivers, 22.5% passengers and 4.1% fare collectors. Then come neighbourhood businesses, with more than 3,000 shop closures in Lima between 2023 and 2024 attributed to extortion, private schools, and civil construction.

The common denominator is clear: extortion targets a visible economic activity, at a fixed address, with daily takings. A bus route, a corner shop, a building site. The non-resident owner of a rented apartment does not fit that profile, and that distinction deserves to be made honestly rather than passed over.

The state of emergency, and what it means on the ground

Lima has lived under a near-continuous state of emergency since the start of 2026. The decree in force at the time of writing is Decreto Supremo 123-2026-PCM, published on 28 August 2026, declaring a 60-day state of emergency in Lima Metropolitana and the constitutional province of Callao. It follows a series of extensions: DS 044-2026-PCM in March, DS 096-2026-PCM in June.

The phrase alarms Europeans more than it should, because it does not carry the meaning it would in Switzerland or France. In practice, the decree allows the suspension of four constitutional rights: inviolability of the home, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, and personal liberty and security. The National Police retains control of internal order, with the backing of the armed forces. Large public gatherings, religious, cultural or sporting, require prior authorisation.

What it changes for a resident or a visiting owner: a more visible police and military presence, possible identity checks, and permits to request for a large event. There is no general curfew, no restriction on ordinary movement, and no closure of activities. This is worth knowing before reading a headline, and worth checking before each trip, because these decrees are renewed every two months.

Why district rankings mislead

The Peruvian press regularly publishes rankings of "the safest district in Lima". They are built on the raw number of police reports, and that method produces absurd results.

The 2024 ranking puts Santa María del Mar first with 31 reports, ahead of Punta Negra and San Bartolo. These are three southern seaside resorts, nearly deserted out of season, with a few thousand inhabitants. They come first because they are empty, not because they are well run. At the other end, San Juan de Lurigancho shows the highest number of reports in the capital, which primarily reflects the fact that it is the most populous district in the country.

These caveats do not mean there are no real differences between districts. They mean a press ranking is not enough to decide, and above all that the district scale is already too coarse for a purchase decision.

Assessing a district before you buy

In Lima, two streets four hundred metres apart do not have the same profile. The method that works is therefore local, and it requires no statistics at all.

The serenazgo. Each municipality funds its own municipal police force. Its budget, vehicle count and camera density vary enormously from one district to another, and these are public figures that municipalities are happy to share. A district investing in its serenazgo makes sure people know.

The three-visit test. A building is judged on a weekday at 9am, on a Friday at 9pm and on a Sunday afternoon. It is the most revealing test, and the one most often skipped when buying from Europe. A shopping street busy by day can be deserted at night, and the reverse also happens.

The building itself. A twenty-four-hour porter or a simple intercom, an entrance airlock, parking control, working cameras, and above all the budget the building association devotes to security. That line in the service charges is a better indicator than any ranking.

The boundaries. Lima's residential districts sometimes border very different areas. Map what lies three streets away, not just the address. This is precisely what a remote purchase misses most often.

Our twelve district profiles set out these elements district by district, and the neighbourhood test points you according to your priorities.

What safety changes for an owner

For an investor, safety is not only a comfort issue, it is a financial variable, and it works both ways.

On rental demand. Districts perceived as safe concentrate demand from families and expatriates, which supports rents and shortens vacancy. It is a significant part of the price premium in Miraflores, San Isidro or San Borja.

On service charges. A well-secured building costs more to run. A permanent porter, CCTV and maintenance weigh on common charges, and therefore on your net yield. They belong in the calculation, not in the surprises.

On resale. A district's reputation moves more slowly than its reality, in both directions. An improving district stays undervalued for a few years; a declining one stays overvalued for just as long. That is where both the opportunities and the mistakes live.

On insurance. Check what the building's policy covers and what you must insure yourself, particularly for a furnished property intended for short-term letting.

What the Swiss authorities recommend

The travel advice of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, in its version updated on 5 March 2026, is direct. It notes that the crime rate is high in Lima, including in places frequented by tourists and especially at night, and that the number of violent assaults is high, with pickpocketing and bag-snatching frequent, sometimes by organised gangs.

Two recommendations are worth taking as they stand. On transport, the department advises using only official transport services or taxis, ordered in advance or arranged by hotels. It reports assaults inside taxis and in hotels, where victims are briefly held, robbed and forced to withdraw money with their credit card, what is known elsewhere as express kidnapping.

Finally, one instruction worth reading twice: in the event of an assault, offer no resistance, because attackers do not hesitate to use violence. The European reflex of protesting or holding on to a bag is the wrong reflex here.

Conclusion

Lima is neither the city described in headlines nor the one sold in brochures. It is a large Latin American capital, with the precautions that implies, and where the gap between felt fear and measured risk is the widest of all the figures quoted here.

For a purchase decision, four ideas are enough. Ordinary crime there is of the same order as in European capitals, where thefts are in fact rising faster. Extortion, which dominates the news, targets commercial activities at fixed addresses, not apartment owners. The state of emergency has been a permanent administrative reality since 2026, not the signal of a sudden crisis. And the only scale that matters is neither the country, nor the city, nor even the district: it is the street, the building and the time of day.

This is a decision to be taken with method, not with a headline. Tens of thousands of Europeans live in Lima without notable incident, in districts they chose using the criteria set out above.