Police Scotland said 8,538 hate crimes were reported between April 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025 – an average of 23.4 per day. The legislation created offences including stirring up hatred on grounds such as age, religion, sexual orientation and transgender identity.

Race was the most commonly recorded factor, accounting for 5,299 incidents. This was followed by 2,036 cases linked to sexual orientation and 1,058 relating to disability. There were also 619 religion-related incidents, 197 connected to transgender identity, six involving variation in sex characteristics and 48 tied to age.

Three crime types made up 82 per cent of all recorded hate crime: threatening or abusive behaviour (48 per cent), racially aggravated conduct (20 per cent) and common assault (14 per cent).

There were 67 recorded offences of stirring up hatred under the new act, 50 of them on racial grounds.

Police Scotland cautioned that changes in legislation and recording systems mean a direct comparison with previous years is not possible.

For aggravated hate crimes where the victim was not a police officer, 75 per cent involved victims from visible minority ethnic groups, compared with seven per cent of Scotland’s population at the 2022 census.

Among such cases, the most common prejudices were against the Black community (34 per cent), the Pakistani community (32 per cent) and general xenophobia (17 per cent).

For disability-related cases, prejudice against those with a cognitive impairment was most frequently recorded (47 per cent). Prejudice against the Catholic community accounted for 35 per cent of religion-related cases. Gay men were the most common victims in sexual orientation cases (80 per cent), while male-to-female transgender people accounted for 49 per cent of transgender identity cases.