Mayfair has a poor safety record, with one of the highest crime rates a buyer is likely to look at anywhere. The rate runs several times the borough's. Most of it is theft. Violence makes up a smaller slice than it does nationally. The person most at risk here is often whoever is carrying the most expensive phone through the district that afternoon.
The Metropolitan Police recorded 27,597 crimes across Mayfair in the year to May 2026, a published rate of about 1,650 for every 1,000 residents, roughly 275% above the Westminster average. That rate is set against the people who live here, and in a district of shops, offices and hotels a large part of the daytime crowd lives somewhere else. The crimes still happen on these pavements, which is what a resident walks home along.
To put the two side by side, Westminster as a whole records about 440 crimes per 1,000 residents over the same year, against Mayfair's 1,650. The borough is no sleepy suburb either. Mayfair still stands out against it.
The neighbourhood behind those numbers is dense, prosperous and fully employed. About 4,900 people live in each square kilometre on average, unemployment runs at about 3% and about 5% of households are overcrowded. Nothing in that list explains the crime figure, and the street plan does more to explain it. Mayfair is boxed in by Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane, and a district framed by four of London's busiest streets draws the people who shop with other people's wallets.
The mix is where Mayfair parts company with almost everywhere else. Theft from the person makes up about 29% of recorded crime here, against about 2% across England and Wales. Other theft adds about 21%, against 7% nationally, and shoplifting about 11%, against 8%. Robbery is about 4%, against 1%. Violence and sexual offences, a broad legal grouping that includes common assault without injury and the largest category almost everywhere, is about 12% here against 35% nationally, and anti-social behaviour about 10% against 16%. Anyone checking a particular street can see its own recent incidents on the police's street-level crime map, which shows whether a flat looks onto a shopping route or a residential square. The 6th Earl of Coventry led the district's first campaign against a public nuisance, the May Fair itself, and won it in 1764. Nobody has yet found a way to abolish a pickpocket.
What happens after a report is a force-wide matter. The Metropolitan Police charges a suspect in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which places it 33rd of 42 forces, and about 53% of its cases close with no suspect identified. Those figures describe the force across London over the year to May 2026, and say nothing about how safe any Mayfair street is. For anyone hoping to see a stolen phone again, they are still worth knowing.
Mayfair is a poor choice on safety, with the risk falling hardest on what people carry rather than on who carries it.