The Chevrolet Silverado 1500 was the fourth most-stolen vehicle in America last year

The National Insurance Crime Bureau’s newest annual theft report found that 16,764 Chevrolet Silverado 1500s were reported stolen across the country in 2025, enough to place the full-size pickup fourth on the list of America’s most-stolen vehicles. The ranking, built from law-enforcement theft data submitted from all fifty states, offers one of the clearest yearly snapshots of which vehicles organized theft rings and opportunistic thieves go after most, and it shows why a truck as common as the Silverado keeps landing near the top of that list year after year even as overall theft trends move in the opposite direction.

How the Silverado stacks up against 2025’s top five

The Hyundai Elantra topped the national list with 21,732 reported thefts, followed by the Honda Accord at 17,797 and the Hyundai Sonata at 17,687. The Silverado 1500 came in fourth at 16,764, making it the first full-size pickup to appear on the list, ahead of the Honda Civic in fifth place with 12,725 thefts. That grouping marks a shift from years when Detroit-built trucks and sedans dominated the upper rungs of the ranking, with import-badged sedans now occupying three of the top four spots and the Silverado standing as the lone domestic nameplate to crack the group.

Why full-size pickups remain a favorite target

Investigators who track theft trends point to a combination of sheer volume and resale value in explaining why trucks like the Silverado stay near the top of the list despite carmakers adding more anti-theft technology to newer models. Millions of Silverados are on the road across nearly every state, giving thieves a wide and geographically dispersed pool of targets, while tailgates, wheels, infotainment units and catalytic converters can be stripped and resold quickly through parts networks that operate largely outside the reach of any single state’s law enforcement. Coverage of the report from Autoblog notes that older model-year trucks without factory immobilizers or upgraded key fobs remain especially overrepresented in theft statistics compared with newer trims that ship with more advanced security, a gap that widens further whenever a truck’s parts carry a premium in the aftermarket.

Imports claiming the top spots for the first time

The National Insurance Crime Bureau titled its release around a shift in the data: import nameplates took the top three positions on the most-stolen list for the first time in the report’s history, with the Elantra, Accord and Sonata all outpacing every domestic model. That detail matters because full-size pickups and mid-size sedans built by American automakers had historically anchored the upper half of the ranking, and the bureau’s underlying release frames the reshuffling as a sign that theft rings are adapting to whichever models are easiest to steal and resell, rather than targeting brands based on reputation, price or where a vehicle was assembled.

A record decline in overall theft that still left the Silverado exposed

The Silverado’s fourth-place finish came during a year when vehicle theft nationwide fell sharply rather than rose, with total reported thefts dropping 23 percent from 2024 to roughly 659,880 vehicles, according to a separate NICB release on the broader decline. That followed a 17 percent drop the year before, meaning national theft totals have now fallen for two consecutive years after a pandemic-era surge, a trend the bureau credits partly to coordinated work between insurers, automakers and police departments. Even against that backdrop of falling totals, the Silverado’s raw theft count stayed high enough to hold a top-five spot, underscoring how uneven the decline has been across specific makes and models.

Why catalytic converter theft is complicating the picture

Catalytic converter theft, which frequently targets trucks and SUVs sitting higher off the ground, had itself fallen sharply, with NICB tallying roughly 14,000 stolen converters in 2024, a 68 percent drop from 2023. That decline has since reversed, and reporting on the rebound ties the renewed rise in converter theft to rhodium prices climbing roughly 39 percent over the past year, pushing the precious metal back toward the price levels that fueled the original wave of converter thefts. Because full-size trucks like the Silverado ride high enough to make converter removal quick work for thieves working underneath a parked vehicle, that resurgence adds another layer of theft risk on top of the whole-vehicle thefts already reflected in the Silverado’s ranking.

What the ranking means for truck owners going forward

Insurers and law-enforcement groups that compile theft data generally recommend basic layered precautions for owners of frequently targeted trucks, including steering-wheel locks, aftermarket GPS trackers, parking in secured or well-lit locations, converter shields welded or bolted over the exhaust system, and keeping factory security features like electronic immobilizers active rather than relying on aftermarket remote-start kits that can bypass them. Because the Silverado’s theft numbers are driven partly by how many are simply on the road, automakers and insurers both note that closing the gap likely requires continued investment in factory-installed anti-theft technology on top of whatever individual owners do to protect a specific truck.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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