The Ford Transit is the most popular van in the UK – but that is also the case among vehicle thieves.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request made to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) reveals that the omnipresent Transit accounts for more than one in two vans stolen.
Indeed, the Ford Transit topped the list of the UK’s most-stolen vans in 2024 and 2025 – and between January and July 2026.
Of the 26,115 van thefts reported during that period, some 13,731 were either the Ford Transit in Custom or full-size guises: equivalent to 52.58 percent of stolen vans.
During this year alone, of the 5,137 light commercial vehicles stolen in the UK, the Transit accounts for more than half (54 percent), with 2,778 thefts so far.
Transit wins with buyers and thieves alike
That the Transit is the van of choice for commercial vehicle thieves is no surprise, given the sheer number of them sold in the UK.
This year alone, between the full-size Transit and its smaller Transit Custom counterpart, more than 42,800 have been registered.
By comparison, the Volkswagen Transporter has seen 10,200 vans registered, with the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter on 9,699 examples.
Durham-based Anglo Scottish Finance undertook the analysis of the DVLA van theft data, finding that 305 different variants of the Transit were reported as being stolen during 2026 alone.
This spans the exhaustive array of the different Transit configurations available, including powertrain type, payload capability and body style.
Van thefts are declining overall
Demonstrating the Ford Transit’s attractiveness to thieves is the gap to the van taking second place on the list of stolen models.
A Mercedes-Benz Sprinter was taken without the owner’s consent 493 times during 2026, accounting for 9.5 percent of such crimes reported.
Following in third was the Peugeot Boxer with 210 thefts (4.1 percent), then the related Citroen Relay (171 examples and 3.3 percent).
Encouragingly, Anglo Scottish Finance’s analysis found that the volume of reported van thefts fell by 15 percent from 2024 to 2025.
During 2026 so far, the number of vans being stolen demonstrates a further eight percent drop year-on-year.
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