The rate of reported crimes dipped in 2023, the FBI said Monday, with a 3% drop in the number of violent crimes reported to police and a 2.4% drop in property crimes.

Even hate crimes fell, despite the tensions in the Middle East.

Motor vehicle thefts were up, and robbery reports remained roughly the same from 2022 to 2023. But other major categories of crime were all down, with reported murders dropping nearly 12% and the number of reported rapes down more than 9%.

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President Biden quickly took credit, saying he moved to try to limit “the illegal flow of guns” and pumped money into state and local police departments.

“None of this happened by accident,” he said in a statement.

The data is an estimate based on numbers submitted to the FBI by more than 16,000 police departments on crimes reported to them within their jurisdictions.

The FBI numbers have been celebrated by Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, and many in the media as evidence that crime is down compared to its pandemic-era peak.

“Are we looking at crime rates at a return to pre-pandemic levels? I think a reasonable person would look at that and say, ‘Yes, that’s what has happened,’” Brian Griffith, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s criminal justice information services division, told The Associated Press.

The numbers conflict, however, with data from another Justice Department division, the Bureau of Justice Statistics. BJS surveys Americans each year and concluded that crime was essentially static last year, and significantly higher than it was when former President Donald Trump left office.

By either measure, crime is down significantly compared to where it was in the 1990s.

According to the FBI data, reports of murder dropped 11.6% and rape dropped by 9.4% last year. Aggravated assault was down 2.8% and robbery reports were down less than half a percent.

Burglary reports fell 7.65% and larcenies were down 4.4%, but motor vehicle theft was up 12.6%.

The FBI said reported hate crimes dropped slightly from 10,687 in 2022 to 10,627 last year.

Mr. Trump, in a debate with Ms. Harris earlier this month, raised the issue of crime.

“Crime in this country is through the roof,” he said.

David Muir, hosting the debate for ABC, cited the FBI data.

“President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country,” he said.

Mr. Trump countered that the FBI data is flawed because not all departments report their crime data.

“They didn’t include the worst cities,” Mr. Trump said.

Ms. Harris said she wouldn’t be lectured on crime by “someone who has been prosecuted for national security crimes, economic crimes, election interference, and has been found liable for sexual assault.”