WASHINGTON: Hate crimes reported across the United States declined in 2025, but new FBI data show that bias against Sikh and Hindu communities remained a significant concern, with advocacy groups reporting increases in incidents targeting both communities.

The FBI’s 2025 hate-crime statistics, released on August 14, show 10,881 hate-crime incidents involving 13,026 offences, 13,438 victims and 9,509 known offenders. Reported incidents fell about 7 percent from the comparable 2024 figure.

However, anti-Sikh and anti-Hindu hate crimes moved in the opposite direction, according to analyses by Asian Americans Advancing Justice and the Sikh Coalition. Anti-Sikh incidents increased from 142 in 2024 to 177 in 2025, a rise of about 25 percent, while anti-Hindu incidents increased from 25 to 28, or 12 percent. Differences in counting methods mean these figures do not always match the percentages derived from the FBI’s national summary tables.

The FBI’s broader religious-bias data recorded 2,703 single-bias religious hate-crime offences in 2025. Anti-Sikh bias represented about 7 percent, or approximately 189 offences, while anti-Hindu bias accounted for 1.2 percent, or roughly 32 offences. The data also recorded about 193 victims of anti-Sikh bias and 34 victims of anti-Hindu bias.

Anti-Jewish bias remained by far the largest category of religious hate crimes, accounting for 62.3 percent, followed by anti-Muslim bias at 9.6 percent and anti-Sikh bias at 7 percent.

The FBI cautioned, in effect, that the numbers reflect reported data and do not necessarily capture the full extent of hate crimes nationwide. The database received information from 16,791 law-enforcement agencies covering approximately 95.3 percent of the U.S. population, but reporting practices vary among jurisdictions.

The Sikh Coalition said anti-Sikh hate crimes peaked in September 2025, when it identified 26 incidents. The organization expressed concern that growing anti-immigrant rhetoric and the portrayal of Sikh and Punjabi truck drivers as public-safety threats could contribute to an increasingly hostile environment.

The FBI does not maintain a separate national hate-crime category for Indian Americans. Victims of Indian origin may be classified under anti-Asian, anti-Hindu, anti-Sikh or other categories depending on the nature of the incident and local reporting practices. Consequently, the national data cannot establish the total number of Indian Americans victimized by hate crimes.

Across racial, ethnic and ancestry-based bias, the FBI recorded 7,200 single-bias offences, with anti-Asian bias accounting for about 418 offences and approximately 438 victims.

The figures present a mixed picture: hate crime overall declined, but the increase affecting Sikh and Hindu communities underscores continuing concerns about religious intolerance, anti-immigrant hostility and the safety of America’s growing South Asian population.