Race and Religious Hate Crimes Hit a Record High
Police in England and Wales recorded 146,825 hate crimes in the year ending March 2026, a 7% increase on the previous year, according to data published on 8 October 2026. The Guardian
Race hate crimes rose 9% and religious hate crimes rose 13%. Excluding the Metropolitan Police, religious offences totalled 8,214 in the 12 months to March 2026, the highest annual total since records began in 2012. Home Office A hate crime, in this system, is an offence flagged for hostility toward one of five monitored strands: race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity.
Offences targeting Muslims increased 15%, from 4,479 to 5,132. Anti-Muslim hate crimes reached 3,660 offences, the highest annual total since this count started in 2018. Antisemitic hate crimes rose 10%, from 2,874 to 3,162.
The year ending March 2026 total excluded Metropolitan Police data. The force changed its crime recording system in February 2024, which removed its returns from the comparable England and Wales aggregate.
The British Muslim Trust was appointed by the UK government in July 2025 to monitor anti-Muslim hostility. It recorded 78 incidents involving 64 mosques across the UK and Channel Islands between 21 July 2025 and 30 July 2026. Of mosque incidents recorded since November 2025, 62.7% fell into its upper four severity levels, compared with 22.2% between July and October 2025.
Not all strands moved upward. Sexual orientation hate crimes fell by 1%, disability hate crimes fell by 5% and transgender hate crimes fell by 4%. The Home Office hate crime bulletin is published annually. The responsible statistician for the year ending March 2026 release is John Flatley.
For comparison, police recorded 137,550 hate crimes in the year ending March 2025 and 140,561 in the year ending March 2024. Religious hate crimes rose by 25% in the year ending March 2024, primarily driven by an increase in anti-Jewish offences. In data reported in October 2025, 2,873 religious hate crimes were recorded against victims perceived to be Jewish, equivalent to 106 crimes per 10,000 Jews.
His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services published 'How effectively do the police record crime?' in August 2025. The UK government statistics announcement for the year ending March 2026 covers both police-recorded hate crimes and Crime Survey for England and Wales data, which asks a sample of people about their experience. In the year ending March 2026, 10.0% of adults experienced harassment, up from 8.3% the previous year, while repeated harassment increased from 2.3% to 3.5%.
The broader context here is one of partial visibility and divergent trends. The exclusion of the country's largest force means the headline 146,825 is an undercount, and year-on-year comparisons require care. Growth is concentrated in race and religion while three other strands eased, and the mosque data show limited volume but a clear rise in severity after November 2025.
Looking at what this means for the months ahead, the questions are methodological as much as political. Reintegration of Metropolitan Police data will reset the baseline. The link between police records and survey reports of harassment will test whether higher recording reflects higher victimisation, greater willingness to report, or changes in recording practice. The immediate task is to reconcile force-level data, track charge and outcome rates behind the counts, and watch whether the severity pattern around places of worship holds into the next returns.
