Chattanooga police recorded 367 burglary cases from April through September 2026. In the same months of 2019 through 2023 the count held between 537 and 573 every year (548 in 2023). It fell to 382 in 2024 and 353 in 2025, and 2026 is at that same lower level: 33% below 2023 and 34% below the 2019-2023 average of 558. Each case number is counted once, and cases marked Unfounded are excluded (no burglary case in this window has been marked Unfounded since 2017).

Full years show the same step: 1,184 in 2021, 1,110 in 2022, 1,014 in 2023, then 738 in 2024 and 715 in 2025. The 2025 total is the lowest of the eleven complete years in the dataset; the highest was 1,847 in 2015.

The decline is larger than the change in police cases overall. All recorded cases for April-September (every offense type, Unfounded excluded) dipped from 29,478 in 2023 to 25,991 in 2024, then recovered to 28,346 in 2026. Burglary did not recover: its share of all cases went from 1.86% in 2023 to 1.29% in 2026.

All six police zones recorded fewer burglaries in April-September 2026 than in 2023: Baker South 113 to 41, Adam South 120 to 87, Charlie South 92 to 73, Adam North 85 to 58, Charlie North 88 to 72 and Baker North 50 to 36. No single block address had more than ten in 2026. Cases where burglary was the only offense listed fell from 390 to 285 (-27%). The offense code (UCR 220) is the same in every year.

Burglary fell alongside other property crime in 2024. Over the same April-September window, theft from buildings went from 325 to 235 and theft from motor vehicles from 1,059 to 838. Trespassing, a nearby category, did not rise that year (670 to 691).

The dataset records incidents reported to or by police, so it cannot tell fewer burglaries apart from fewer reports, and it gives no reason for the decline. The comparison uses April through September because the published file has far fewer records for February and March 2026 than for the months around them.