Home Security in Fort Worth: Burglary Data, the $50 Alarm Permit, and What Works

What Fort Worth's crime data shows

Fort Worth publishes incident-level crime data through the city's open data program, fed by the police department's records system and updated continuously. Offenses are coded by Texas Penal Code section, which makes burglary easy to isolate: PC 30.02 covers burglary of a habitation or building, PC 30.04 covers burglary of a vehicle.

Reported offenses by year:

Within the 2025 burglary numbers, the split was 1,292 habitation burglaries and 1,374 building burglaries, with the remainder under related subsections.

Two takeaways. Burglary is trending down, consistent with national patterns. And vehicle break-ins outnumber home and building burglaries by roughly two thirds, year after year. A Fort Worth security setup that ignores the driveway is solving the smaller half of the local problem. For how much deterrence yard signs and visible equipment actually buy, see do security signs deter burglars.

Fort Worth's alarm permit and false alarm fees

Fort Worth ties police response directly to permitting: property owners with a monitored alarm system who want police response to an alarm activation must hold an alarm permit, issued through the city's Development Services Department. Registration, renewal, and payments run through the city's CryWolf portal (managed by CentralSquare Technologies).

The costs, as of August 2026:

One caveat on that table. The city's alarm page contradicts itself on the sixth call: its prose puts calls 4 and 5 at $50 and calls 6 and 7 at $75, while the fee table lower on the same page lists calls 4 through 6 at $50 and then lists 6 again in the $75 row. Every other band agrees. Plan on $75 for a sixth false alarm and confirm with the city's permit vendor if the difference matters to you.

Excessive false alarms can also get the permit revoked, which ends police response to unverified alarms at that address. That makes false alarm hygiene a real cost lever in Fort Worth: at $50 per year plus fee exposure, a well-configured system with entry delays and trained household members is cheaper than a twitchy one.

Separately and optionally, FWPD invites residents to register private surveillance cameras so investigators can request footage after nearby incidents. That is voluntary and distinct from the alarm permit.

Choosing a system for a Fort Worth home

The data pattern (vehicle break-ins first, home burglary second, both substantial) favors a layered setup: entry sensors on doors and reachable windows, plus at least one exterior camera with a clear view of the driveway and street-facing side.

The monitoring question carries extra weight here because Fort Worth's permit regime is built around monitored systems. If you go professionally monitored, the $50 annual permit is part of your real cost of ownership, alongside the monthly fee; we break down the whole stack in home security cost per month. Whether the monitoring fee itself is worth paying is covered in is professional monitoring worth it, with the DIY comparison in DIY vs professional monitoring cost.

A self-monitored, no-fee system sidesteps the monitored-alarm permit question for police dispatch (you call 911 yourself if the camera shows something real) at the cost of having no one watching when you are unreachable. Our picks are in best self-monitored systems with no monthly fee.

If professional monitoring fits your situation, providers quote differently by home size, equipment, and contract. Our quote tool takes a short questionnaire and fetches real quotes from monitoring providers for your address, which is a faster way to see true pricing than working through sales calls one by one.