Canada’s police-reported intimate partner violence rate reached its highest comparable level in 2025, Statistics Canada said, even as a separate survey found no change in the share of people experiencing recent partner assault.
The agency recorded 133,256 victims aged 12 and older, equal to 366 per 100,000 people. The rate was 1.9% above 2024 and 18% higher than in 2018, when it stood at 311 per 100,000. Comparable data extend to 2009, making 2025 the highest point in that series.
Women and girls made up 78% of police-reported IPV victims. Among people aged 12 and older, the rate was 566 per 100,000 for women and girls, compared with 165 for men and boys. Rates were 1,096 in northern regions, 437 in the rural south and 307 in the urban south; Saskatchewan had the highest provincial rate, at 706, followed by Manitoba at 624.
A separate Statistics Canada survey found that 3.2% of people aged 15 and older experienced physical or sexual assault by a current or former intimate partner in the 12 months before the 2025 survey. The comparable figure was 3.1% in 2018, a difference the agency described as unchanged.
The survey and police records measure different aspects of intimate partner violence. The survey covers a defined 12-month period and a different age group, while police data count incidents that came to police attention.
The Uniform Crime Reporting Survey includes assault, harassment, threats and other forms of violence involving current or former spouses, common-law partners, dating partners and other intimate partners. Statistics Canada says intimate partner violence is often underreported, so police records do not capture its full scope.
Statistics Canada said a 2018 adjustment to the definition of a “founded” crime may have contributed to the broader rise in police-reported violence, but it did not calculate the effect on IPV rates. The agency plans to publish additional profiles on self-reported intimate partner violence in the coming months.
