Germany reports rise in foreign suspects in major cities

Data released by the German government shows a significant increase in the proportion of non-German suspects across 77 studied cities since 2015. According to an analysis of a government response to a parliamentary inquiry, the share of foreign suspects in violent crime rose from 39.7 percent to 48.8 percent.

In 21 of the 77 cities, the number of foreign suspects in violent crime cases has surpassed that of German suspects, compared to only six cities in 2015. In eight specific cities, non-Germans now constitute the majority of all criminal suspects: Frankfurt am Main, Munich, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Mannheim, Heilbronn, Offenbach, and Ulm.

In Frankfurt, while approximately 32.1 percent of the population did not hold German citizenship at the end of 2025, they accounted for 57 percent of criminal suspects. Similar trends were noted in Munich, Stuttgart, and Nuremberg, where non-German suspects made up more than half of the total suspects in each city.