Quick answer
NYC tenants and residents filed more than 220,000 rat (rodent) complaints to 311 between 2020 and 2025. Complaints jumped 51% from the 2020 lockdown low (27,583) to a peak of 41,748 in 2023, then fell about 25% to 31,312 in 2025 — including a 21% drop in 2025 alone, coinciding with the city's rat-mitigation push. Brooklyn recorded the most complaints every single year (NYC Open Data, 311).
Are New York’s rats actually getting worse? We pulled six years of 311 rodent complaints — more than 220,000 of them between 2020 and 2025 — and charted the trend by year and borough, using the City’s own public data. The answer is more interesting than “yes” or “no”: the rats surged, peaked, and have been retreating.
The arc: lockdown surge, 2023 peak, two-year decline
| Year | Rodent complaints | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 27,583 | — (lockdown low) |
| 2021 | 38,809 | +41% |
| 2022 | 41,121 | +6% |
| 2023 | 41,748 | +2% (peak) |
| 2024 | 39,726 | −5% |
| 2025 | 31,312 | −21% |
Complaints jumped 51% from the 2020 lockdown low to the 2023 peak of 41,748 — the post-pandemic return of outdoor dining sheds, street life and restaurant waste was a rat banquet. Since that peak, complaints have fallen about 25%, including a 21% drop in 2025 alone. That decline lines up with the city’s rodent-mitigation push (more on that below) — though complaint counts are a proxy, not proof.
Brooklyn is the rat capital — every single year
| Borough | 2020 | 2023 (peak) | 2025 | 2020→2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brooklyn | 9,661 | 15,762 | 11,045 | +14% |
| Manhattan | 6,511 | 11,208 | 8,631 | +33% |
| Queens | 5,028 | 7,271 | 5,401 | +7% |
| The Bronx | 5,125 | 6,204 | 5,105 | −0.4% |
| Staten Island | 1,258 | 1,297 | 1,130 | −10% |
Brooklyn led the city in rat complaints in all six years — no borough ever overtook it. Manhattan was the fastest-growing over the period (+33% from 2020 to 2025) and the second-rattiest throughout. The Bronx, despite its density, stayed essentially flat, and Staten Island actually fell.
Why the rise — and the fall?
- The lockdown low was the anomaly, not the baseline. 2020’s 27,583 reflects an empty city — closed restaurants, off-street dining, less waste. As New York reopened through 2021, complaints snapped back up 41% in a single year.
- 2021–2023: the boom. Outdoor dining structures, busier streets and more restaurant refuse drove complaints to their 41,748 peak.
- 2023 onward: the mitigation era. The city named a Director of Rodent Mitigation in 2023, designated Rat Mitigation Zones in the hardest-hit neighborhoods, and began phasing in mandatory trash containerization — taking bags off the street and into bins. Complaints have fallen for two straight years since. The timing is striking; the data can’t prove the cause.
Methodology & honest caveat
We counted every NYC 311 service request with a complaint type of Rodent for each calendar year 2020–2025, from the 311 Service Requests dataset (NYC Open Data), aggregated citywide and by borough. Data pulled June 17, 2026.
Important: these are reported complaints, a proxy for where and when New Yorkers encounter rats — not a verified rat census. Complaint volume reflects reporting behaviour (awareness, 311 campaigns, civic engagement) as well as actual rat activity, so a fall in complaints is not direct proof of fewer rats, and the year-over-year changes should be read as a trend in reporting, not a population count. We attribute nothing causally to the city’s mitigation programs — we only note that the post-2023 decline coincides with them.
Use this data (free to cite, embed or download)
Journalists, researchers and bloggers are welcome to use this — it’s public data, openly presented. A link back is appreciated.
Download the full dataset (CSV): nyc-rat-complaints-trend-2020-2025.csv — citywide + every borough, all six years.
Cite it as:
Expert Exterminating analysis of NYC 311 Service Requests (NYC Open Data), “Rodent” complaints, 2020–2025. https://expertexterminating.com/guides/nyc-rat-complaints-trend/
Embed the chart (copy-paste — it links back to the full data):
<a href="https://expertexterminating.com/guides/nyc-rat-complaints-trend/">
<img src="https://expertexterminating.com/images/nyc-rat-trend-2020-2025.svg"
alt="NYC rat complaints by year 2020–2025 — data by Expert Exterminating" width="700" style="max-width:100%;height:auto" />
</a>Seeing more rats on your block?
Citywide complaints are down from the 2023 peak, but a neighbourhood — or a single building — can buck the trend. If rats are active where you are:
- Cut the food and water. Secure trash in hard bins, fix leaks, and clear pet food and bird seed. Containerization works at the building scale too.
- Seal the entries. Rats need only a gap the width of a quarter. Seal around pipes, vents and door sweeps — exclusion is what keeps them out for good.
- Don’t rely on store-bought bait alone. Poorly placed bait kills slowly, breeds bait-shy colonies and risks pets and kids. A licensed program targets burrows and entry points and documents the work for landlords and DOH.
Expert Exterminating provides rodent control — inspection, burrow treatment, exclusion and the documentation tenants, landlords and co-op boards need — across all five boroughs of New York City.