Construction site break-ins rose more than 50% year over year, from fewer than 1,750 in 2024 to 2,639 in 2025, according to the 2026 State of Construction Site Security report from TrueLook and Noonlight. That jump came in a year when the FBI’s 2025 crime data showed US burglary falling 15.8%. Verisk’s CargoNet put 2025 cargo theft losses at about $725 million, up 60%, while the National Equipment Register logged 286 equipment thefts worth $7.65 million in its latest look at the Memorial Day window alone. This page pulls together the freshest verified numbers on how often construction sites are hit, what thieves take, when they come, and what a theft really costs a project.
Summary / Key statistics at a glance
- 2,639 confirmed break-ins at monitored US construction sites in 2025, up from fewer than 1,750 in 2024, a rise of more than 50% (TrueLook and Noonlight, 2026).
- 800+ more break-ins were already documented in early 2026 (TrueLook and Noonlight, 2026).
- More than 40% of confirmed break-ins happen on weekends, and the peak window is 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. (TrueLook and Noonlight, 2026).
- 29% of the 170,000+ alarm events reviewed were caused by routine employee activity (TrueLook and Noonlight, 2026).
- 400 to 800 hours of lost production per theft is the estimate cited in the Noonlight analysis of the same data (2026).
- $725 million in estimated cargo theft losses in 2025, up 60% from 2024, with the average value per theft up 36% to $273,990 (Verisk CargoNet, 2026).
- $7.65 million in losses from 286 equipment thefts around Memorial Day, based on five years of data, with Texas accounting for 30% of incidents (National Equipment Register, 2026).
- 77% increase in stolen metals cargo in 2025, tied to copper demand (Verisk CargoNet, 2025).
- 15.8% drop in US burglary and 12.4% drop in property crime overall in 2025 (FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, 2025).
- 76% of contractors reported tariff impacts heading into 2026 (Associated General Contractors of America, 2026).
- US$6.51 per pound was the closing copper price on October 2, 2026 (Cochilco, 2026), with the 2026 year-to-date average at US$6.10.
How big is construction site theft in 2026?
There is no single government tally of construction site theft. The best current evidence comes from monitored sites. The TrueLook and Noonlight report, which covers January through December 2025 and draws on more than 170,000 alarms, counted 2,639 confirmed break-ins at active commercial sites. Monitoring teams dispatched authorities roughly 2,000 times. This is a sample of protected sites, not a national census, but the direction is clear: the report describes break-ins increasing over 50% year over year.
That trend runs against the national crime picture. The FBI’s 2025 summary estimates property crime fell 12.4% to about 5.2 million offenses, burglary fell 15.8% to a rate of 193.6 per 100,000 people (the lowest in 20 years), larceny-theft fell 9.8%, and motor vehicle theft fell 22.7%. Construction sites, with valuable materials sitting unattended for hours at a time, appear to be moving the other way.
For equipment specifically, the National Equipment Register (NER), a Verisk business, now publishes holiday-window snapshots rather than an annual national total, and we could not find a current annual figure. Its Memorial Day 2026 analysis covers five years of data for the window from the Thursday before the holiday to the Wednesday after. It counted 286 equipment thefts with a combined loss of $7,650,346, or about $26,750 per theft (our calculation from NER’s totals). Even in a window that short, the losses reach seven figures.
The wider supply chain shows the same upward pressure. Verisk’s CargoNet analysis put 2025 cargo theft losses at about $725 million, up 60% from 2024. Cargo theft is not the same as site theft, but construction materials such as metals and electrical goods move through the same freight networks.
When and how thieves strike
Timing is predictable, which is good news for site security planning.
- Nights and weekends. More than 40% of confirmed break-ins occurred on weekends, and the peak window ran from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. Weekends are two of seven days, about 29% of the calendar, so weekend sites are hit out of proportion to their share of the week.
- Seasonality. TrueLook and Noonlight found spikes in April and again from July through December, when active building seasons put more material on site.
- Easy access. The report says unsecured or unlocked gates were the most common enabler, and that the typical break-in is a vehicle simply driving onto the site. Fencing and locks alone proved insufficient as deterrents.
- Insiders. The report flags after-hours access by credentialed workers as the most common event reviewed by monitoring teams, which points to internal theft and policy gaps that often go unreported. Separately, 29% of alarm events came from routine employee activity, which is why access control and clear close-out procedures matter as much as cameras.
What gets stolen: equipment, copper, and materials
TrueLook and Noonlight list the most commonly targeted items as Conex boxes, copper wire and conduit, lumber and roofing materials, generators and temporary power equipment, tools, and heavy equipment with accessible keys.
On the equipment side, NER’s Memorial Day 2026 analysis ranks skid steers, utility vehicles, and mowers as the top three equipment types stolen. The top three locations were jobsites, storage locations, and dealerships. Machines that can be driven or loaded onto a trailer in minutes, and that sit in unattended yards, are the ones that disappear.
Where equipment theft clusters
NER’s Memorial Day 2026 data ranks the top five states by share of incidents: Texas (30%), California (8%), Oklahoma (6%), Georgia (5%), and Colorado (5%). Texas is far ahead of every other state. NER’s Memorial Day 2025 release shows the same pattern, with Texas at 25% of incidents in the Memorial Day 2025 window.
NER’s recent snapshots do not report recovery rates, so there is no current recovery figure to quote. Treat any recovery statistic that does not name its source and year with caution. The practical lesson is the same either way: prevention, tracking, and fast reporting carry more weight than recovery planning.
The cost beyond the stolen item
The sticker price of a stolen generator or spool of wire understates the damage. The Noonlight analysis estimates a single theft can cause 400 to 800 hours of lost production, a figure that reflects crews waiting on replacement tools and materials, re-ordering lead times, and rework. For a project working to a fixed completion date, those hours can matter more than the replacement cost.
Material values are also climbing, which raises the stakes of every loss. AGC’s January 2026 analysis found the producer price index for nonresidential construction inputs rose 3.6% year over year in November 2025, the fastest pace since January 2023. Aluminum mill shapes rose 28%, fabricated structural metal (including rebar and bar joists) rose 16.6%, and steel mill products rose 4.6%. In AGC’s 2026 outlook survey, 76% of contractors said tariffs affected them, 53% named materials costs a top concern, and 40% raised bid prices because of tariffs. None of that is theft data, but it means every pallet of metal on a laydown yard is worth more than it was two years ago.
Emerging trends and what’s new in 2026
Copper is the hot commodity. Cochilco, Chile’s copper commission, raised its 2026 average copper price forecast to US$5.95 per pound in August, saying the historically high values reflect strong global demand and supply restrictions. Its market report for the week ending October 2 shows copper closing at US$6.51 per pound, down 2.61% on the week, with the 2026 year-to-date average at US$6.10. Even after that pullback, the price sits well above the full-year forecast Cochilco had published in August. Copper wire and conduit are among the items TrueLook and Noonlight list as frequent targets, and the incentive to steal them rises with the price.
Organized, selective theft is growing. Verisk’s CargoNet analysis of 2025 found cargo theft losses rose about 60% to roughly $725 million, even though total supply chain crime events were essentially flat (3,594 versus 3,607 in 2024). Confirmed cargo thefts rose 18% to 2,646, and the average value per theft climbed 36% to $273,990. Stolen metals jumped 77%. CargoNet describes organized groups shifting from opportunistic theft to selective, high-value targeting. Construction materials move through the same supply chains, so contractors should expect the same logic to apply to staged materials on site.
Break-ins are still climbing in 2026. TrueLook and Noonlight counted more than 800 break-ins in early 2026, so the 2025 total is unlikely to be a one-year spike.
Most alarms are not crimes. Of the 170,000+ alarm events reviewed, 29% were caused by routine employee activity. Sites that tighten access schedules and gate protocols can cut noise and make real events easier to spot.
What the numbers mean for project teams
Taken together, the data points to a handful of practical priorities. Gates are the first line: the most common enabler in the TrueLook and Noonlight data was simply an unsecured entry. Timing is the second: coverage that concentrates on nights and weekends, especially from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., matches where confirmed break-ins actually occur. Staging is the third: copper wire, conduit, generators, and keyed equipment are the items most often named as targets, so how and where they are stored on site matters. Finally, because no current recovery rate is published, the safest assumption is that a stolen machine rarely returns, so the cheapest loss is the one that never happens.
The people side of site security
Securing a site is also a staffing question. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports about 1.29 million security guard jobs in 2025, a median wage of $38,020 a year ($18.29 an hour), and only 1% projected growth from 2025 to 2035. Even with slow growth, about 157,200 openings a year are projected for security guards and gambling surveillance officers combined, mostly from workers leaving the occupation. For contractors, that turnover is a reminder that reliable after-hours coverage depends on retaining people who know the site, its gates, and its access rules, and on project leaders who own close-out procedures.
How Tall Trees Talent helps
Tall Trees Talent helps contractors and infrastructure firms fill hard-to-staff project management, superintendent, safety, and field leadership roles, the people who set and enforce site close-out and access procedures, with recruiters who have worked in the industry themselves. Explore construction recruiting to see how it works.
