Crime · Brazil · Updated 2026-10-26

How many people are killed in Brazil each year?

In 2024, Brazil's Ministry of Health death register (SIM) recorded 42,590 homicides, including killings by police, and state police records compiled by FBSP counted 44,220 intentional violent deaths, 3.8% more, both the lowest of any year since 2015; Ipea and FBSP's estimate that adds homicides hidden among deaths of undetermined intent is 49,673.

Every figure in this summary is calculated from the sources listed on this page.

Homicide victims in Brazil, 2024

People killed intentionally by another person, including people killed by police, counted once per victim. Brazil, national total, Calendar year 2024. Unit: deaths.

43,405deaths, 2024

86Trust scoreHigh certainty

Quality32 / 40: How well the sources are made
Agreement27.7 / 30: How close the sources are to each other
Independence16 / 20: How many separate ways the number was measured
Freshness10 / 10: How recent the newest data is

How much each source counts

SIM (health)50%
FBSP (police)50%

Shown but not counted: Atlas (republishes Ministério da Saúde, Sistema de Informações sobre Mortalidade (SIM), DataSUS TabNet: óbitos por causas externas).

Sources

Source	Value	Definition	Quality	Weight
Ministério da Saúde, Sistema de Informações sobre Mortalidade (SIM), DataSUS TabNet: óbitos por causas externasMinistério da Saúde, Brazil (SVSA/CGIAE), via DataSUS · Death and health registersRetrieved 2026-10-26	42,5902024	Deaths of residents of Brazil whose underlying cause on the death certificate is assault (ICD-10 X85-Y09: 39,946) or legal intervention and operations of war (Y35-Y36: 2,644), by year of death. Deaths of undetermined intent (Y10-Y34: 17,207) are not included. DataSUS marks data up to 2024 as final (extracted 2 December 2025). Raw file: TabNet query "Óbitos p/Residênc por Grande Grupo CID10 segundo Ano do Óbito", 2015-2024 (saved 2026-10-26). The yearly sums match the Atlas da Violência 2026, Tabela 2.2, exactly. SIM 2025 data are preliminary and not used.	4 of 5 checks Yes: Method and definitions published. The Ministry of Health publishes TabNet technical notes; causes of death are coded with ICD-10. Yes: Official statistics or peer-reviewed. Official mortality statistics of Brazil's Ministry of Health (SVSA/CGIAE). Yes: Full count or representative sample. Full count of deaths registered on death certificates nationwide, not a sample. Yes: Raw data downloadable. Record-level death files (DO, DBC format) are free downloads from DataSUS (ftp://ftp.datasus.gov.br/dissemin/publicos/SIM/CID10/DORES/). No: No known break or quality problem. Deaths of undetermined intent (Y10-Y34) rose 23.8% to 17,207 in 2024; the Atlas da Violência says much of the 2024 fall in recorded homicides reflects worse classification.	50%
Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública, Anuário Brasileiro de Segurança Pública 2026, Tabelas 01-02: Mortes Violentas IntencionaisFórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública (FBSP) · Police and justice recordsRetrieved 2026-10-26	44,2202024	Mortes Violentas Intencionais (MVI): victims of homicídio doloso including feminicide (36,440), latrocínio (969), lesão corporal seguida de morte (774) and deaths from police intervention on and off duty (6,237), as recorded by the state security secretariats and police. Minas Gerais counts police killings inside homicídio doloso, so FBSP's total is lower than the sum of the four. The 2024 figure is the update published in the 2026 edition. Raw file: anuario-2026.xlsx, sheets T01 (2024 components) and T02 (series 2015-2024), the tables of the PDF edition (https://forumseguranca.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/anuario-2026.pdf, pp. 27-30). MVI includes police killings, which the defined number also includes, so directness is 1.	4 of 5 checks Yes: Method and definitions published. Each table defines MVI and notes state-specific counting rules. Yes: Official statistics or peer-reviewed. Counts are the official records of the 27 state security secretariats and police forces, compiled by FBSP. Yes: Full count or representative sample. Counts every victim recorded by the police in all 27 states, not a sample. Yes: Raw data downloadable. Tables by state and year are a free XLSX download; record-level data are not published. No: No known break or quality problem. Not a uniform victim count: São Paulo reports lesão corporal seguida de morte as occurrences, not victims, states classify deaths under their own rules, and each edition revises the previous year (2024 was updated in 2026).	50%
Ipea and FBSP, Atlas da Violência 2026, Tabela 2.2: homicídios registradosInstituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (Ipea) and FBSP · Death and health registersRetrieved 2026-10-26	42,5902024	SIM deaths by state of residence, ICD-10 X85-Y09 plus Y35-Y36 (Tabela 2.2, p. 17). Built from the same death register as the SIM line, so it is shown but not counted. Value typed from the Atlas PDF into scripts/brazil-homicides.manual.json; the script checks that its 2015-2024 national counts equal the SIM TabNet sums for every year.	4 of 5 checks Yes: Method and definitions published. The Ministry of Health publishes TabNet technical notes; causes of death are coded with ICD-10. Yes: Official statistics or peer-reviewed. Official mortality statistics of Brazil's Ministry of Health (SVSA/CGIAE). Yes: Full count or representative sample. Full count of deaths registered on death certificates nationwide, not a sample. Yes: Raw data downloadable. Record-level death files (DO, DBC format) are free downloads from DataSUS (ftp://ftp.datasus.gov.br/dissemin/publicos/SIM/CID10/DORES/). No: No known break or quality problem. Deaths of undetermined intent (Y10-Y34) rose 23.8% to 17,207 in 2024; the Atlas da Violência says much of the 2024 fall in recorded homicides reflects worse classification.	Not counted

Homicide victims in Brazil, 2024, by source · deaths

Ministério da Saúde, Sistema de Informações sobre Mortalidade (SIM), DataSUS TabNet: óbitos por causas externas
Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública, Anuário Brasileiro de Segurança Pública 2026, Tabelas 01-02: Mortes Violentas Intencionais

Show the data as a table

Year	Ministério da Saúde, Sistema de Informações sobre Mortalidade (SIM), DataSUS TabNet: óbitos por causas externas	Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública, Anuário Brasileiro de Segurança Pública 2026, Tabelas 01-02: Mortes Violentas Intencionais
2015	59,080	58,437
2016	62,517	61,600
2017	65,602	64,079
2018	57,956	57,592
2019	45,503	47,765
2020	49,868	50,448
2021	47,847	48,286
2022	46,409	47,963
2023	45,747	46,441
2024	42,590	44,220

Homicides in Brazil including estimated hidden homicides, 2024

People killed by assault or police intervention, including deaths recorded with undetermined intent that were in fact homicides. Brazil, national total, Calendar year 2024. Unit: deaths.

49,673deaths, 2024

47Trust scoreLow certainty

Only one source – not confirmed by others. Agreement can't be measured, so the score can't reach High.

Quality16 / 40: How well the sources are made
Agreement15 / 30: Unknown with one source, so set to half
Independence6 / 20: How many separate ways the number was measured
Freshness10 / 10: How recent the newest data is

How much each source counts

Atlas estimate100%

Sources

Source	Value	Definition	Quality	Weight
Ipea and FBSP, Atlas da Violência 2026, Tabela 3.1: homicídios estimadosInstituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (Ipea) and FBSP · Independent countRetrieved 2026-10-26	49,6732024	42,590 homicides recorded in SIM (X85-Y09 plus Y35-Y36) plus 7,083 "hidden homicides": deaths of undetermined intent (Y10-Y34) that a machine-learning model classifies as probable homicides from the victim's age, sex, marital status, schooling and municipality and the weapon, date and place of the incident (Box 3.1, p. 18). Directness 0.5: a modelled estimate, not a count. Tabela 3.1, p. 22, typed into scripts/brazil-homicides.manual.json. The script checks that estimated minus recorded equals the hidden homicides the Atlas states for 2023 (3,755) and 2024 (7,083).	2 of 5 checks Yes: Method and definitions published. The method (Cerqueira and Lins, 2024) is described in Box 3.1 of the Atlas and in an Ipea report. No: Official statistics or peer-reviewed. A model estimate by Ipea and FBSP researchers, not an official statistic and not from a peer-reviewed journal. Yes: Full count or representative sample. Applied to every death of undetermined intent in the SIM register, not a sample. No: Raw data downloadable. The SIM input data are downloadable; the per-death classifications from the model are not published. No: No known break or quality problem. No uncertainty range is published, and the input data's classification worsened in 2024 (hidden share 14.3%).	100%

Homicides in Brazil including estimated hidden homicides, 2024, by source · deaths

Show the data as a table

Year	Ipea and FBSP, Atlas da Violência 2026, Tabela 3.1: homicídios estimados
2015	62,846
2016	66,536
2017	69,184
2018	63,194
2019	52,869
2020	55,470
2021	52,999
2022	52,391
2023	49,502
2024	49,673

Why the numbers differ

SIM classifies each death from the death certificate, coded by health staff under the ICD-10 cause-of-death list; FBSP compiles the victims that state police and security secretariats record under criminal-law categories (homicídio doloso, latrocínio, lesão corporal seguida de morte and police killings).
Police killings are recorded very differently: state police records count 6,237 deaths from police intervention in 2024, while death certificates record 2,644 deaths from legal intervention. Leaving police killings out of both, FBSP's count is 37,983 and SIM's assault deaths (X85-Y09) are 39,946. Calculated from Anuário Tabela 01 and the SIM TabNet table, both in the sources table. (source, retrieved 2026-10-26)
Deaths of undetermined intent: SIM recorded 17,207 violent deaths whose intent was not determined in 2024, 23.8% more than in 2023. The Atlas da Violência estimates 7,083 of them were homicides (14.3% of its estimated total). Recorded SIM homicides changed -6.9% from 2023, the Atlas estimate +0.3%. (source, retrieved 2026-10-26)
SIM's count was higher than FBSP's in 2015-2018 and lower in 2019-2024; SIM's deaths of undetermined intent went from 12,310 in 2018 to 16,648 in 2019. Calculated from the SIM TabNet table and Anuário Tabela 02, both in the sources table and the chart. (source, retrieved 2026-10-26)
The gap differs by state: in 2024, SIM's count by state of residence ranged from 18.9% below FBSP's in São Paulo to 31.8% above in Roraima, and was below FBSP's in 14 of 27 states. Calculated from a TabNet query of 2024 deaths by state and Anuário Tabela 01. (source, retrieved 2026-10-26)

Common mistakes

Quoting homicídio doloso (36,440 in 2024) as all killings: it leaves out latrocínio, lesão corporal seguida de morte and, in most states, deaths from police intervention. (source, retrieved 2026-10-26)
Reading the 2024 fall in recorded homicides on its own: deaths of undetermined intent rose in the same year, and the Atlas estimate including hidden homicides barely moved. (source, retrieved 2026-10-26)

Context

Considered, not used

SIM 2025 data (preliminary): DataSUS marks 2025 as preliminary (extracted 28 July 2026), so the page uses 2024, the latest final year, which FBSP and the Atlas also cover. (source, retrieved 2026-10-26)
FBSP MVI for 2025: Published in the Anuário 2026, but not the headline year because SIM has no final 2025 data yet. (source, retrieved 2026-10-26)
UNODC intentional homicide data for Brazil: UNODC gives DATASUS as its source for Brazil (see the homicide rate by country page), the same death register as the SIM line.
Ministry of Justice (SINESP) homicide statistics: Compiled from the same state police records as FBSP's Anuário, so it would not be an independent line.
DataSUS record-level death files (DBC): TabNet tabulates the same records; the DBC files use a compression the Python standard library cannot read, which this site's build scripts are limited to.

Use this data

Download every value on this page (CSV). Scores useformula version 1.0.

Cite as: RealStats, “How many people are killed in Brazil each year?”, updated 2026-10-26, with the original sources listed on the page.

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How many people are killed in Brazil each year?

Homicide victims in Brazil, 2024

Score breakdown

How much each source counts

Sources

Homicides in Brazil including estimated hidden homicides, 2024

Score breakdown

How much each source counts

Sources

Why the numbers differ

Common mistakes