Safest Neighborhoods in Phoenix, Ranked by FBI Crime Data

According to FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data processed through NeighborScore's crime-scoring pipeline, the safest neighborhoods in the Phoenix metro cluster in Gilbert and Peoria, not Phoenix proper. Three Gilbert ZIP codes — 85234, 85295, and 85233 — post a crime score of 95 out of 100, the highest of any ZIP code in the metro with a complete NeighborScore profile. Peoria's 85383 and 85381 follow close behind at a crime score of 80, and Chandler's 85225 posts the same 80 with the metro's largest population base among this group.

How NeighborScore Calculates a Crime Score

NeighborScore's composite index scores every ZIP code on a 0-100 scale using the formula overall_score = crime_score × 0.53 + school_score × 0.47 — safety and school quality only. A separate affordability figure, value_score, is calculated and displayed on every profile, but it is never folded into the composite; it exists purely as context on how a ZIP's home costs compare to the Arizona state median.

The crime_score itself is built from a four-tier cascade, and each ZIP is scored using the highest-resolution data actually available for it. The top tier applies where a police department publishes ZIP-level incident data — currently Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco — and scores FBI Part I violent-crime rates against the county median. Most of the country, including the entire Phoenix metro, falls to the second tier: municipality-level crime reported by local police departments to the FBI Crime Data Explorer, matched to ZIP codes by city and jurisdiction. Where a city hasn't reported to the FBI's NIBRS system, the third tier falls back to county-level FBI data, and a fourth tier averages already-scored ZIPs statewide for the rare case where even county data is missing. Gilbert, Peoria, and Chandler all report agency-level crime directly to the FBI, so the ZIP codes below are scored on that municipality tier — a real measurement of local police-reported crime, not a statewide estimate.

Phoenix Metro's Safest ZIP Codes, Ranked

Ranked by crime score, then by NeighborScore's overall composite, these are the six highest-scoring ZIP codes in the Phoenix metro with complete data:

1. 85234 (Gilbert) — crime score 95, school score 80, overall 88/100. The highest overall score in the metro.
2. 85295 (Gilbert) — crime score 95, school score 79, overall 87/100.
3. 85233 (Gilbert) — crime score 95, school score 70, overall 83/100.
4. 85383 (Peoria) — crime score 80, school score 84, overall 82/100. The strongest school score of any ZIP on this list.
5. 85225 (Chandler) — crime score 80, school score 67, overall 74/100.
6. 85381 (Peoria) — crime score 80, school score 72, overall 76/100.

The gap between the Gilbert cluster and everything else in the metro is the crime score itself, not the composite. A 95 versus an 80 reflects a real difference in FBI-reported crime rates relative to each city's population, and it's large enough that even Chandler and Peoria's respectable school scores can't fully close the overall gap with Gilbert.

Gilbert's three ZIP codes don't just lead this list — they're scored on the same municipality tier as every other city here, which makes the comparison apples-to-apples rather than an artifact of different data resolutions. Chandler and Peoria both report crime to the FBI at the same agency level, and both land 15 points behind Gilbert on the crime score. Mesa's ZIP codes, by contrast, score in the mid-60s on crime, and Scottsdale's high-end 85255 posts a crime score of 65 despite the metro's strongest school score of 83 — a reminder that a well-known name doesn't automatically translate into the metro's best safety numbers once the FBI data is actually tallied.

What Home Prices Look Like in These ZIP Codes

Safety in this part of the Valley comes at a premium. Across Arizona, the average value_score — NeighborScore's affordability measure, which rises as a ZIP's home costs fall relative to the state median — sits around 52 out of 100. Every ZIP on this list scores below that benchmark, meaning all six are less affordable than a typical Arizona ZIP, not more. Peoria's 85381 is the closest to average, with a value score of 46 and a median listing price near $445,000. Gilbert's cluster runs more expensive: 85234 carries a median price around $558,000, and Peoria's 85383 — the ZIP with this list's best school score — tops the group at roughly $660,000, which pulls its value score down to 36.

That trade-off is consistent with how NeighborScore treats affordability across the site: it's shown as context, never averaged into the overall score, because a cheaper ZIP with worse crime and school numbers shouldn't outrank a safer, better-schooled one just because it's less expensive. US Census Bureau income data helps explain the price floor here: median household income across these six ZIP codes runs from roughly $89,000 in Chandler's 85225 to more than $145,000 in Peoria's 85383, well above both the statewide and national medians, and homeownership rates exceed 60% in every one of them — a signal of the owner-occupied, suburban housing stock that tends to correlate with lower reported crime in FBI municipality-level data.

For buyers comparing options beyond this list, NeighborScore's blog covers how the scoring methodology applies across other metros, and every ZIP profile linked above breaks out the underlying crime, school, and property data behind each number.

Bottom Line

Gilbert's 85234, 85295, and 85233 are the safest ZIP codes in the Phoenix metro by FBI-reported crime data, each scoring 95/100 on NeighborScore's crime score, with Peoria's 85383 and 85381 and Chandler's 85225 close behind at 80/100. All six trade some affordability for that safety, running below the Arizona average on NeighborScore's value score, but they combine municipality-tier FBI crime data with above-average school scores to post the highest overall composite scores in the region.