The U.S. Department of Transportation has released its full-year cruise crime data for 2025, and the numbers are deeply troubling. The DOT totals show 131 reported sex crimes in 2025, up from 120 in 2024, with those 131 incidents broken down as 51 sexual assaults and 80 rapes. The DOT reported a total of 181 crimes across all cruise lines in 2025, just surpassing the previous record of 2023, when 180 crimes were reported. Behind each of these numbers is a real person who was violated in one of the most isolated environments imaginable, often far from home and with no independent law enforcement to turn to.

If you were sexually assaulted on a cruise ship, you have legal rights that the cruise lines are counting on you not knowing about. At Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, P.A., our attorneys have handled cruise ship sexual assault cases for decades and have recovered well over $500 million for injured clients. Founded in 1971, our firm has 19 attorneys across 7 offices nationwide. Charles Lipcon and Jason R. Margulies have both been named “Lawyer of the Year”® in Admiralty and Maritime Law by “Best Lawyers”®, and our firm has been recognized by US News & World Report as a “Best Law Firms”®.

What the DOT Cruise Crime Data Measures

Under the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act (CVSSA) of 2010, cruise lines operating ships that carry 250 or more passengers and embark or disembark from U.S. ports are required to report certain crimes to the FBI. The DOT then publishes that data quarterly. The categories tracked include sexual assault, rape, physical assault with serious bodily injury, theft over $10,000, homicide, suspicious deaths, and missing U.S. nationals.

Crime Categories in the 2025 Report

Sexual offenses dominate the data by a significant margin. The full-year 2025 numbers break down across these categories:

• Sexual assault and rape: 131 incidents (51 sexual assaults, 80 rapes)
• Assault with serious bodily injury: 22 incidents
• Theft over $10,000: 19 incidents
• Missing U.S. nationals: 7 incidents
• Suspicious deaths: 1 incident
• Homicide: 1 incident

Sexual offenses make up approximately 67 percent of all serious crimes reported to federal authorities under mandatory cruise ship reporting requirements. No other crime category comes close, and that pattern has held across every year of available data.

Year-Over-Year Trend Analysis

The 2025 figures are part of a longer and worsening trend. There were 87 alleged sexual assaults in 2022, and 101 in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic shut the industry down. The numbers climbed sharply as the cruise industry rebounded, reaching 131 in 2023, 120 in 2024, and 131 in 2025. In our opinion, the sexual assaults on cruise ships that get counted in these reports represent only a fraction of what actually happens aboard these vessels, as the discrepancy in cruise ship crime reporting is well-documented and significant.

At the cruise line level, the 2024 data is instructive. Carnival Cruise Line had 39 sexual assaults and rapes across all four quarters of 2024, while Royal Caribbean had 28 such crimes for the same period. Despite having around 35,000 fewer passengers on its fleet on an average day compared to Royal Caribbean, Carnival recorded roughly 40 percent more sexual crimes.
 

Why, In Our Opinion, the Real Numbers Are Almost Certainly Higher

The official DOT figures only count crimes that were actually reported to the FBI through cruise line security channels. Just one out of every three victims reports sexual assault to law enforcement. On a cruise ship, those odds are even worse. Survivors face pressure from shipboard security staff employed by the cruise line, uncertainty about jurisdiction, fear of not being believed, and the disorienting reality of being at sea. As such, in our view, the reality of the problem is almost certainly far worse than what the DOT data reflects.

Reporting requirements under the CVSSA also exclude crimes against non-U.S. nationals and non-American crew members, which means the scope of the issue is even broader than the published numbers suggest. Understanding the process of reporting rape on a ship correctly is critical because missing procedural steps can affect your ability to pursue legal action.

Your Legal Rights After a Cruise Ship Sexual Assault

Maritime law governs what happens aboard cruise ships, and it operates very differently from land-based personal injury law. Cruise lines embed strict deadlines in their ticket contracts, some as short as one year, which makes acting quickly essential. The CVSSA also includes victim protections, requiring cruise lines to maintain sexual assault forensic evidence kits and provide access to medical care. Knowing what to do if you are a victim of cruise ship sexual assault can make a critical difference in how your case proceeds.

Cruise Lines Have Deadlines on Your Right to Sue. Don’t Wait. Contact Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, P.A.

You deserve to have someone in your corner who has handled cases exactly like yours. Our attorneys have spent decades holding cruise lines accountable for the safety failures that allow sexual assaults to happen, and we have appeared on national television hundreds of times to advocate for maritime victims. Our 19 attorneys bring deep knowledge of the laws governing what happens at sea, and we handle these cases on a contingency-fee basis, meaning you pay nothing unless we recover for you.

 

If you were assaulted on a cruise ship, please reach out. Complete our free case evaluation form or call us at 877-233-1238 to speak confidentially with a member of our team.