6,157 hate crimes recorded in Wales: what the latest figures show

The Home Office has published a total of 6,157 hate-crime offences recorded across the four Welsh police forces in the year ending March 2026. Its tables carry an important warning: South Wales Police was unable to confirm its totals before publication. The annual release, published on 8 October, measures offences recorded by police. It does not count every hate crime experienced or every victim.

How the Wales total is made up

The force table lists 1,568 offences for Gwent, 1,293 for North Wales and 382 for Dyfed-Powys. South Wales accounts for a further 2,914 in the published table, subject to the confirmation warning. Those four figures add to 6,157. The figures are counts, rather than population-adjusted rates. They should not be read as a ranking of a resident’s likelihood of experiencing hate crime in each force area.

Why the categories add up to more than the offences

The Wales row lists 4,098 race-related motivating factors, 325 relating to religion, 1,107 to sexual orientation, 648 to disability and 242 to transgender identity. Together these make 6,420 motivating factors, more than the 6,157 offences. An offence can have more than one recorded motivating factor, so adding the categories does not produce a count of separate crimes. The 325 religion-related factors are the combined religious category for Wales. They are not a Wales-only count of offences targeting Jewish people or Muslims.

The wider figures cover England and Wales together

Across England and Wales, the Home Office reports 146,825 recorded hate-crime offences, up 7% from the previous year. Religious hate crimes rose 13%, including increases of 15% for offences targeting Muslims and 10% for those targeting Jewish people. Those percentage changes apply to England and Wales combined. They do not establish a 10% increase in Wales alone.

What recorded crime can and cannot tell us

The Home Office cautions that changes in recording and identification of hate crime affect comparisons over time, while crimes that are not reported to police are missing from these totals. It describes the figures as a measure of hate-crime demand on policing rather than a reliable measure of how common hate crime is. For Wales, the published force counts provide a starting point for understanding that demand. Confirmation of the South Wales totals, and comparable figures over time, matter before drawing conclusions about changes within Wales.