Montreal had nearly 500 break-ins in May — Here are the hardest-hit neighbourhoods

With the weather heating up, Montreal is seeing an uptick in break-ins across the island.

Montreal recorded 487 break-ins in May, the highest single-month total of 2026 by a significant margin and a step up from April’s 410. That pushes the running total to 2,220 as of May 31, according to data from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), tracked through the city’s Vue sur la sécurité publique interactive mapping tool.

At roughly 15.7 break-ins per day, May was the busiest month of the year so far, and the numbers line up with a pattern that has held in previous years, where warmer months tend to drive higher incident counts across the island.

Where the incidents are concentrated

The SPVM’s map shows the same general hotspots that have defined 2026, with the east end absorbing the heaviest share of incidents by a wide margin. The Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve area remains the single biggest cluster on the map, with 261 incidents recorded in that zone alone. Central Montreal follows with 156, while Verdun posted a notably elevated count of 119 on the south shore-facing edge of the island.

Montreal North continues to appear prominently in the data with 67 incidents, and the François-Perrault corridor to the east registered 77. The Villeray and Rosemont areas remain active in the middle of the island.

The west end tells a different story. Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Pointe-Claire and Beaconsfield posted relatively modest numbers compared to the central and eastern clusters, continuing a pattern that has held throughout the year.

How 2026 is trending

At the current pace, Montreal is on track to finish the year somewhere around 5,300 break-ins, which would still represent an improvement over recent years but is creeping upward from earlier projections.

Here’s how the annual totals have looked going back a decade:

• 2015: 9,947
• 2016: 9,483
• 2017: 8,816
• 2018: 7,052
• 2019: 6,715
• 2020: 5,733
• 2021: 4,809
• 2022: 5,554
• 2023: 6,048
• 2024: 5,844
• 2025: 6,139

May’s surge is a reminder that the warmer months tend to do a lot of work in these annual totals. In 2025, October alone accounted for 579 incidents, the busiest single month of the year, so how the next few months play out will matter a great deal for where 2026 ultimately lands.

If you want to check activity on your specific street or neighbourhood, the SPVM’s interactive map is available through the City of Montreal’s website, where you can filter by crime type and date range.