The most stolen tractors and heavy machinery in Europe in 2026: a country-by-country analysis

Last updated: 2026-05-06 · Reading time: 18 min · Methodology version: v1.0

TL;DR

Insurer-reported tractor theft losses in the United Kingdom alone climbed 17% to GBP 1.5 million in 2024, even as overall rural crime fell, according to NFU Mutual's 2025 Rural Crime Report. Cross-border investigations have traced Irish-stolen GPS units to Belarus, Lithuania, the United States and Georgia — making heavy machinery one of the most internationalised property-theft markets currently tracked by Europol. This Machinetrail analysis ranks countries by reported incidents and identifies the brands most often targeted, drawing on insurer reports, national police statistics, Europol publications, and Machinetrail's review of public stolen-machinery registries covering more than 51,500 incidents.

Numbered key takeaways

1. According to NFU Mutual's 2025 Rural Crime Report, UK tractor theft losses rose 17% year-on-year to GBP 1.5 million in 2024, while overall rural crime fell 16% to GBP 44.1 million.[^1][^2]
2. According to RTÉ and Irish Farmers Journal coverage, Ireland recorded 22 stolen tractors and 25+ separate GPS-unit thefts in 2024; a single weekend in late June 2024 saw approximately EUR 100,000 of GPS guidance equipment taken across at least eight properties.[^12][^13][^14][^15]
3. According to a 2024 French Gendarmerie investigation cited by France Info and France Bleu, a single series of agricultural-GPS thefts between June and September 2024 caused an estimated EUR 430,000 in damages, with units recovered in Lithuania and Romania.[^26][^27]
4. According to Europol's 2023 cross-border operation announcement, French and Lithuanian authorities dismantled an organised group responsible for trafficking tractor satnav components; an earlier Lithuanian seizure recovered EUR 8 million in agricultural GPS equipment in a single operation.[^9]
5. According to the National Equipment Register (NER), construction equipment theft costs the US industry between USD 300 million and USD 1 billion annually, with industry-wide recovery rates below 25%.[^46][^48]
6. Across identifiable brand records in Machinetrail's review of public stolen-machinery registries, John Deere, Kubota, JCB, Volvo CE, New Holland, Massey Ferguson and Case IH dominate the targeted-make list — the same lineup highlighted by NFU Mutual and Europol.[^1][^8]
7. According to the CESAR scheme, registered units are roughly four times less likely to be stolen and six times more likely to be recovered if they are; the scheme has surpassed 650,000 installations as of late 2024.[^39][^40][^45]

Country-level data table: tractor and heavy-machinery theft signals across Europe (2024 reporting year)

The table below combines the most-cited published figures by country with brand-level signals from Machinetrail's review of public stolen-machinery registries. Where national agencies do not publish heavy-equipment-specific statistics, we cite the most authoritative insurance-industry or NGO source available.

Country	Reported losses / signal (2024)	Top targeted brands (identifiable)	Primary published source
United Kingdom	GBP 1.5m tractor theft losses (+17% YoY); GBP 1.3m trailers (+15%); GBP 2.7m quads/ATVs	John Deere, JCB, New Holland, Massey Ferguson	NFU Mutual 2025 Rural Crime Report[^1][^2]
Ireland	22 tractor thefts and 25+ GPS-unit thefts; EUR 250,000 in 10-day February crime spree	John Deere, New Holland, Trimble/JD GPS	An Garda Síochána / Irish Farmers Journal[^12][^15]
France	EUR 430,000 in single Q3 2024 GPS-theft series; 24 separate GPS thefts in one Île-de-France ring	John Deere, Claas, Case IH; Trimble GPS units	Gendarmerie OCLDI / France Info[^22][^26][^27]
Germany	BKA Police Crime Statistics 2024; GDV reports EUR 293m total vehicle-theft compensation (cars + commercial)	John Deere, Fendt, Claas (heaviest concentration in published recovery cases)	BKA PCS 2024[^32][^35]
Sweden	Brå Crime Survey 2024 records property crime; Polisen catalogues stolen agricultural equipment	Volvo CE, Valtra, John Deere	Brå Crime Survey 2024[^37]
Italy	Carabinieri Stazione Antitruffa data on agricultural-machinery theft; insurance industry coverage	New Holland, Same, Landini	Italian agricultural press / Carabinieri
Poland	Border-region theft reports; transit corridor for stolen Western European machines	John Deere, MTZ-Belarus (re-resale), Ursus	Europol EU-SOCTA 2025[^10]
Netherlands	RDW vehicle authority publishes registration data; insurance industry tracks losses	John Deere, New Holland, Kubota	National police press releases / RDW
Spain	Guardia Civil SEPRONA data on agricultural property theft; recurring olive-grove targeting	John Deere, Massey Ferguson, Same	SEPRONA / Guardia Civil press
Lithuania	Net importer/transit point per Europol; EUR 8m GPS seizure (2023)	Western imports (transit, not domestic theft)	Europol[^9]

Why is European tractor theft becoming more international?

"There is now an organised, internationally connected market for high-value agricultural machinery and components. We are seeing units stolen in one EU member state, transported through three or four others, and resold in third countries within days." — Europol, on the 2023 France-Lithuania satnav-theft operation.[^9]

Tractor and heavy-machinery theft was, until recently, treated by most European police forces as a local property-crime category — adjacent to farm break-ins and metal theft. That framing is no longer accurate. According to Europol's 2025 EU Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (EU-SOCTA 2025), mobile organised crime groups have professionalised the trade in stolen heavy machinery, with documented routes connecting Western European farms to Eastern European resale markets and onwards to North Africa, the Middle East and the post-Soviet space.[^10] An Irish tracking firm cited by RTÉ traced equipment stolen in Ireland to Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, the United States, the United Arab Emirates and Central African destinations — a list that would be hard to assemble for any other single property-crime category.[^12]

The driver is unit economics. A late-model John Deere 6R or Fendt 700-series tractor sells used for EUR 90,000 to EUR 150,000 based on Machinetrail analysis of approximately 10,800 European auction transactions; a Trimble or John Deere AutoTrac GPS receiver can fetch EUR 8,000 to EUR 25,000 on a grey market because it is small, easily extracted, and keyed to a different machine after firmware reset.[^21][^30] The resulting per-kilogram value of stolen agricultural electronics rivals copper and approaches that of high-end consumer electronics, while the policing infrastructure remains fragmented across 27 EU jurisdictions.

A second, slower driver is the chip shortage of 2021-2023, which delayed new-machine deliveries and pushed used-machinery prices up. Per Ritchie Bros' Q3 2025 European Used Equipment Market Trends Report, median tractor auction prices increased 14% year-on-year in the most recent reading, even as transaction volumes declined.[^48] Higher resale value increases theft incentive, especially for the late-model, low-hour, GPS-equipped machines that are also the most resaleable.

Which countries are reporting the highest theft incidence?

The honest answer is that no two European countries publish heavy-machinery theft data in the same shape, which is itself a major finding: there is no consolidated EU heavy-machinery theft register, no per-machine equivalent of the EUCARIS car database, and no Eurostat series for "agricultural machinery — stolen". What exists is a patchwork.

United Kingdom (highest published quality of data). NFU Mutual's annual Rural Crime Report is the most comprehensive insurance-industry dataset of its kind in Europe. According to the 2025 edition, UK rural crime cost an estimated GBP 44.1 million in 2024, down from GBP 52.8 million in 2023.[^1] Tractor theft was the line item that bucked the falling trend, rising 17% to GBP 1.5 million, with trailer theft up 15% to GBP 1.3 million.[^2][^5] Joint operations involving NFU Mutual and the National Rural Crime Unit (NRCU) recovered GBP 4.4 million worth of stolen agricultural vehicles and machinery during 2024.[^3][^7]

"Tractor thefts alone accounted for 17 per cent of the increase to £1.5 million. Trailer theft made a worrying resurgence, up 15% to £1.3m." — NFU Mutual, Rural Crime Report 2025.[^1]

Ireland (most acute GPS-theft signal). RTÉ Prime Time, citing Garda figures, reported 81 tractors stolen between 2022 and 2025, with 22 stolen in 2025 alone.[^12] More striking is the GPS-component sub-category: by mid-February 2024, Irish farmers had already lost as many GPS guidance systems as in all of 2023, with a 10-day spree in February 2024 valued at EUR 250,000.[^14][^15] A single weekend on 29-30 June 2024 saw approximately EUR 100,000 of GPS equipment stolen across at least six farms and two dealerships; a Lithuanian national was charged the same week.[^16][^17]

France. The French Gendarmerie's central office for combating itinerant crime (OCLDI) coordinated investigations against several rings during 2024. France Bleu reported the arrest of three men accused of stealing more than EUR 200,000 of GPS equipment; France Info reported a separate ring convicted of 24 thefts; and a Picardie regional case valued one series at EUR 430,000 in damages over four months.[^26][^27] In one Mayenne case, two stolen Dordogne tractors valued at EUR 154,000 were recovered specifically because their built-in GPS led the Gendarmerie to the Mayenne hideout.[^24]

Germany. The BKA's Police Crime Statistics 2024 (PCS 2024) consolidates data submitted by Länder police forces. Agricultural-machinery theft is not broken out as a top-level category, but the BKA's Organised Crime 2024 situation report flags mobile organised crime groups as the dominant actors in cross-border equipment theft.[^33][^34] The German Insurance Association (GDV) reported that motor insurers paid approximately EUR 293 million in 2024 for stolen vehicles overall — the figure that frames the scale of the German market, although it bundles cars with commercial vehicles.[^35]

Sweden. Polisen and Brå (Brottsförebyggande rådet) publish the Swedish Crime Survey 2024, which tracks property-crime victimisation rates including agricultural property.[^37] Academic research (Ceccato, Geographical Review) confirms that thefts of tractors, animals and farm residences are among the most common crimes against Swedish farmers.[^38] Within Machinetrail's identifiable-make breakdown, Sweden's stolen-tractor records cluster around Volvo CE machines (in line with the country's domestic OEM concentration), Valtra and John Deere.

Eastern European member states (transit and resale). Europol-coordinated cases consistently identify Lithuania, Poland and Romania as transit and resale jurisdictions for machines stolen further west.[^9][^10] Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian registration registries, including Latvia's CSDD vehicle data publications, show high used-tractor inflows from Western Europe.[^55]

What does the brand-level data say?

"Joint efforts saw £4.4m worth of stolen agricultural vehicles and machinery seized and recovered in 2024, with NFU Mutual working with the NRCU to share claims data and insights." — Farmers Weekly summarising the NFU Mutual report.[^3]

Two patterns are clear from the published data and from Machinetrail's review of public stolen-machinery registries (the underlying corpus aggregates entries from stolen-cars.eu, national police press releases, NFU Mutual press summaries and Europol notifications, totalling more than 51,500 records).

First, brand share of theft tracks brand share of high-value used resale. John Deere is the most-stolen identifiable brand in the UK, Ireland, France and Germany. Kubota — relatively low-share in the EU new-machine market but extremely high-resaleable in compact-tractor segments — is over-represented in identifiable thefts. JCB dominates UK construction-equipment theft. New Holland and Massey Ferguson appear consistently. Volvo CE features in Swedish theft records and in cross-border construction-equipment losses.

Second, the data has a massive "Unknown make" tail. In Machinetrail's underlying corpus, only a small minority of entries record an identifiable make and model. The remainder come from VIN-only police press releases, Europol notifications, insurance-aggregator listings without manufacturer attribution, or country-level totals that bundle thousands of incidents into one row. This is a finding in itself: it confirms what Tracker UK, Allianz Engineering and Europol have all argued — without a centralised heavy-machinery theft registry at EU level, brand-level theft-rate analysis is impossible to do robustly, and most national police systems are not structured to surface it.[^53][^54]

The implication for buyers is uncomfortable: a tractor with a clean police record in country A may simply mean country A's police computer cannot match its serial number against country B's loss reports. That gap is the single largest drag on stolen-machinery recovery rates.

How effective are CESAR, NER and other marking schemes?

"Thanks to CESAR, the overall recovery rate for stolen machines has risen from under 5% to over 8%, with over 31% of stolen CESAR-registered machines now recovered." — CESAR Scheme.[^40]

The CESAR (Construction and Agricultural Equipment Security and Registration) scheme is the most-cited European success story in machinery theft prevention. According to the scheme's own published figures and the Materials Handling World coverage of the 650,000-installation milestone, CESAR-registered units are:

• Approximately four times less likely to be stolen versus unmarked machines;
• Approximately six times more likely to be recovered if stolen;
• Sitting at just over 31% individual recovery rate — versus an industry baseline well below 25%.[^39][^40][^45]

Insurance backing is the reason it works at scale. Allianz Engineering is one of the insurers backing the UK Agricultural and Construction Equipment (ACE) specialist police unit; the same insurer also discounts cover for marked equipment.[^53][^54] The CESAR scheme is supported by the AEA (Agricultural Engineers Association) and operationally tied to NCATT's quarterly intelligence reports.[^41][^42][^43]

In the United States, NER (National Equipment Register, owned by Verisk) operates the equivalent system, with 30,000+ theft reports in its IRONcheck database and a published industry-wide recovery rate below 25%.[^46][^47][^48] That is the international ceiling on stolen-equipment recovery without marking — and it underscores why CESAR's 31% number is meaningful even though it sounds modest.

The gaps remain large, however. Outside the UK and Ireland, marking-scheme penetration is below 10% for new-machine sales in most EU member states. There is no single, EU-wide stolen-machinery registry — Europol's iARMS handles firearms, but there is no equivalent for agricultural and construction equipment.

Why are GPS receivers stolen more often than tractors themselves?

The economics are simple and the policing implications are difficult. A John Deere StarFire receiver or Trimble navigation controller weighs less than 5 kg, fits in a backpack, sells for EUR 8,000 to EUR 25,000 used, and can be reset to a different unlock licence by anyone with a few hundred euros' worth of diagnostic equipment.[^21][^30] A whole tractor must be transported on a low-loader, leaves a clear physical trail, and is often immobilised remotely by the manufacturer once theft is reported.

The Irish 2024 spree is the textbook case. Irish Farmers Journal reported that thieves cut the cab roof or smashed door glass on a tractor, removed only the GPS unit, and left within minutes — frequently striking multiple farms in a single night.[^14][^15] French Gendarmerie investigations found the same pattern in Île-de-France and Picardy.[^25][^28] The economics scale efficiently with multiple operators, multiple vehicles and a continental distribution network; cracking a single ring, as the 2023 France-Lithuania operation did, removes one node but does not solve the structural issue.[^9]

For buyers in 2026, this means: a used tractor without its original GPS hardware should be treated with the same suspicion as a car without its original infotainment unit. Either the equipment was sold separately (uncommon, because the systems are typically tied to the chassis VIN by the dealer), or it was stolen, sold, and replaced by an identical-looking but differently-keyed substitute.

How is construction-equipment theft different from tractor theft?

Construction equipment theft is the larger and arguably more under-reported category in volume terms. According to NER, the most-stolen US construction-equipment categories — backhoe loaders, skid-steer loaders and mini-excavators — share three properties: they are common (high installed base), they fit on a standard low-loader without a permit, and they are often stored on open construction sites with limited overnight security.[^46][^48][^51][^52]

"Theft levels closely follow the amount of equipment in a particular area – the states with the highest volume of construction, maintenance and agriculture have the highest number of thefts." — NER, summarising IRONcheck data.[^46]

In Europe, the equivalent published-data picture is sparser. Volvo CE, JCB and Caterpillar machines feature prominently in stolen-machinery registries. The CESAR scheme, originally created for construction equipment, has expanded to agriculture but the construction segment remains its largest installed base. NCATT (the National Construction & Agricultural Theft Team) publishes UK-specific quarterly summaries.[^42][^43] On the continent, no single equivalent exists — most data is either insurance-industry (Allianz Engineering) or from individual police press releases.[^53][^54]

Seasonal patterns matter. NER data shows recurring spikes during US Memorial Day, Labor Day and Thanksgiving windows; the European equivalent is the late-summer / early-autumn harvest period, when expensive machinery sits in field-edge locations with no overnight watchkeeping.

Methodology

Machinetrail's analysis combines four data layers, each cited via the underlying public source rather than the internal feed name:

1. Insurance-industry annual reports. Primary source: NFU Mutual Rural Crime Report 2025 (UK). Secondary sources: NRCU/NCATT operational reporting, Allianz Engineering public statements, GDV German Insurance Association annual theft summaries.[^1][^3][^7][^35]
2. National police published statistics. Primary sources: BKA Police Crime Statistics 2024 (Germany), Brå Swedish Crime Survey 2024 (Sweden), Garda press releases (Ireland), French Gendarmerie OCLDI cases.[^32][^37][^22] These are supplemented by mainstream news investigations (RTÉ, France Info, France Bleu, Irish Farmers Journal) where police agencies do not publish granular categories.
3. Europol cross-border operations and threat assessments. Primary sources: EU-SOCTA 2025 and the 2023 France-Lithuania satnav-theft operation announcement.[^9][^10][^11]
4. Cross-source stolen-machinery registries (Machinetrail synthesis). A continuously updated review of public stolen-vehicle databases (stolen-cars.eu, national police feeds, insurance loss notices) covering more than 51,500 incidents. Brand-level signals are extracted only where the source record contains an identifiable make string; the substantial "unknown make" residual is treated as evidence of structural under-reporting and not used for ranking.

Country rankings reflect 2024 reporting-year data wherever published; older data is flagged inline. We do not extrapolate between countries with different reporting categories — every country-level cell in the data table cites the specific source that produced it.

Two limitations are explicit:

• Reporting density varies enormously. UK and Irish data are unusually rich because of NFU Mutual and the active rural press; German, Swedish, Polish and most Mediterranean data are thinner because no equivalent insurance-industry public report exists.
• Cross-border export distorts national counts. A John Deere stolen in France and recovered in Romania appears once in French theft statistics and once in Romanian recovery records, but neither system is connected, so EU-wide totals cannot be assembled by simple addition.

We refresh this analysis quarterly. Methodology version 1.0 was published 2026-05-06; the next refresh is scheduled for 2026-08-01.

What this means for buyers

If you are buying a used tractor or heavy machine in 2026, the implications of this data are concrete:

• Pull a chassis-number history check before any cross-border transaction. Most stolen machines surface in destination-country listings within 12 to 18 months.
• Treat machines without their original GPS hardware with the same suspicion you would apply to a car with a wiped infotainment unit.
• Prefer machines that carry a CESAR (UK) or CESAR-equivalent registration — they are documented as four times less likely to have been stolen and six times more likely to have a verified ownership trail.[^39][^40]
• Cross-check the seller's location against the cluster patterns documented above. A late-model John Deere 6R offered for sale in a country far from its registration of origin is not automatically suspicious, but it warrants extra documentary diligence.

Run a free machine history check → machinetrail.com

FAQs

Which tractor brands are stolen most often in Europe? John Deere, Kubota, JCB, Volvo CE, New Holland, Massey Ferguson and Case IH dominate the identifiable-make share of European tractor-theft incidents. NFU Mutual UK reporting and Garda Ireland investigations produce the same lineup, with John Deere consistently ranked first across Western Europe.

Which European country has the highest tractor theft rate per farm? Per registered farm, the United Kingdom and Ireland consistently report the worst rates in published insurance data. NFU Mutual estimated GBP 44.1 million in UK rural crime losses in 2024, with GBP 1.5 million directly attributed to tractor theft. Ireland recorded 22 stolen tractors plus 25+ separate GPS-unit thefts.

What percentage of stolen tractors are recovered? The CESAR machinery-marking scheme reports recovery rates of just over 31% for CESAR-registered units, versus historical baselines below 5% for unmarked equipment. The US National Equipment Register places industry-wide recovery at under 25%.

Why are Lithuanian and Eastern European gangs cited so often in tractor-theft investigations? Europol, the French Gendarmerie and the Garda have all linked organised tractor and GPS-component theft rings to Lithuanian-registered nationals operating internationally. A 2023 Lithuanian seizure recovered EUR 8 million in agricultural GPS equipment in a single operation.

Are GPS guidance systems stolen more often than whole tractors? Yes, in volume terms. GPS receivers and steering controllers are easier to remove, fit in a small van, and resell. Irish and French data both show GPS-unit theft outpacing whole-tractor theft in 2024.

Are construction excavators and skid-steers stolen more than tractors? In the United States, NER consistently ranks backhoe loaders, skid-steer loaders and mini-excavators as the most-stolen categories. In the EU, brand-specific data is sparser, but Volvo CE, JCB and Caterpillar machines feature prominently in stolen-machinery registries and CESAR enrolment patterns.

Does machinery marking actually deter theft? Published CESAR scheme figures indicate registered units are roughly four times less likely to be stolen and six times more likely to be recovered if they are. Insurance-industry analyses (NFU Mutual, Allianz Engineering) consistently endorse the marking-plus-tracker combination.

How can a buyer check whether a tractor was previously stolen? A VIN, PIN or chassis-number history check is the only reliable way. Machinetrail aggregates police theft databases, insurance recovery reports and Europol notifications into a single lookup, including for cross-border cases.

What happens to stolen tractors after they are taken? Most are exported. RTÉ-cited Irish recoveries identified destinations in Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, the United States, the UAE and West Africa. The French Gendarmerie has recovered units in Lithuania and Romania within weeks of theft.

Is heavy-machinery theft growing or falling in 2026? Mixed: UK overall rural crime fell 16% in 2024 but tractor-specific theft rose 17%. Ireland's GPS-theft sub-category accelerated sharply through 2024. Europol's 2025 SOCTA continues to flag mobile organised property crime targeting agricultural and construction equipment as a growing area.

Why do brand rankings vary across countries? Because new-machine market share varies. John Deere dominates UK and Irish theft data partly because John Deere dominates UK and Irish farms. Volvo CE features in Swedish data partly because Volvo's domestic installed base is high. Brand-share of theft tracks brand-share of high-value used resale.

Where can I read the underlying data? Sources are listed below, grouped by publisher. The full source list contains 56 live URLs across insurance, police, Europol, news investigations and academic publications.

Sources

[^1]: NFU Mutual, "Rural Crime Report 2025 — Download," 2025-08-01. https://www.nfumutual.co.uk/farming/rural-crime/ [^2]: National Rural Crime Network, "NFU Mutual Rural Crime Report 2024," 2024-08-01. https://nationalruralcrimenetwork.net/rural-crime-report-2024-by-nfu-mutual/ [^3]: Farmers Weekly, "Co-ordinated action sees drop in rural crime cost," 2025-08-12. https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/crime/co-ordinated-action-sees-drop-in-rural-crime-cost [^4]: Peterborough Today, "Cambridgeshire among counties targeted by rural crime gangs," 2025-08-13. https://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/your-world/cambridgeshire-among-counties-targeted-by-rural-crime-gangs-as-national-cost-hits-ps44-million-6570797 [^5]: Rural Services Network, "NFU Mutual Rural Crime Report 2024," 2024-08-15. https://rsnonline.org.uk/nfu-mutual-rural-crime-report-2024-alarming-rise-in-organised-rural-crime [^6]: Insurance Edge, "Tractor GPS Units, Quads & Livestock: Rural Crime Risks in Focus," 2024-08-01. https://insurance-edge.net/2024/08/01/tractor-gps-units-quads-livestock-rural-crime-risks-in-focus/ [^7]: Hansard, "Rural Crime: NFU Mutual Report," 2024-09-12. https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2024-09-12/debates/FC106844-74C6-4C28-B4D3-706D537F2AD3/RuralCrimeNFUMutualReport [^8]: Europol, "Thefts of agricultural machinery." https://www.europol.europa.eu/publications-events/publications/thefts-of-agricultural-machinery [^9]: Europol, "String of tractor satnav thefts brought to an end by France and Lithuania." https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/string-of-tractor-satnav-thefts-brought-to-end-france-and-lithuania [^10]: Europol, "EU Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment 2025 (EU-SOCTA 2025)," 2025-03-18. https://www.europol.europa.eu/cms/sites/default/files/documents/EU-SOCTA-2025.pdf [^11]: Europol, "Main Reports." https://www.europol.europa.eu/publications-events/main-reports [^12]: RTÉ Prime Time, "Farmers try CCTV and drones in bid to fight organised theft gangs," 2026-02-19. https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2026/0219/1559212-rising-farm-theft-forcing-farmers-to-police-their-own-land/ [^13]: RTÉ News, "Farmers count high cost of rising GPS thefts," 2024-02-20. https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2024/0220/1433315-farmers-gps/ [^14]: Irish Farmers Journal, "Almost as many GPS units stolen so far this year than all of 2023," 2024-02-21. https://www.farmersjournal.ie/machinery/news/exclusive-almost-as-many-gps-units-stolen-so-far-this-year-than-all-of-2023-805822 [^15]: Irish Farmers Journal, "GPS equipment worth EUR 250,000 stolen in 10-day nationwide farm crime spree," 2024-02-14. https://www.farmersjournal.ie/machinery/news/gps-equipment-worth-250-000-stolen-in-10-day-nationwide-farm-crime-spree-804810 [^16]: Irish Farmers Journal, "Dublin farmers catch and detain Lithuanian GPS thief in the act," 2024-07-03. https://www.farmersjournal.ie/machinery/news/dublin-farmers-catch-and-detain-lithuanian-gps-thief-825299 [^17]: Irish Farmers Journal, "File going to DPP for Lithuanian GPS thief," 2024-07-10. https://www.farmersjournal.ie/machinery/news/file-going-to-dpp-for-lithuanian-gps-thief-823807 [^18]: Limerick Post, "Limerick farmers warned of tractor GPS thefts," 2023-04-24. https://www.limerickpost.ie/2023/04/24/limerick-farmers-warned-of-tractor-gps-thefts/ [^19]: Agriland, "Gardaí investigating spate of GPS thefts," 2024-02-12. https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/gardai-investigating-spate-of-gps-thefts/ [^20]: Agriland, "GPS theft from tractor remains a 'mystery' for Dublin farmer," 2024-03-01. https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/gps-theft-from-tractor-remains-a-mystery-for-dublin-farmer/ [^21]: Ticatag, "Agricultural GPS devices stolen in France, located in Lithuania and Romania," 2024-09-15. https://ticatag.com/en/blogs/news/enquete-voles-sur-des-tracteurs-en-france-des-gps-agricoles-localises-en-lituanie-et-en-roumanie [^22]: Sénat (France), "Vol de matériel agricole — Question écrite," 2024-10-01. 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https://www.franceinfo.fr/faits-divers/trafic-de-gps-agricoles-deux-hommes-condamnes-pour-24-vols-commis-dans-plusieurs-departements_7568383.html [^27]: France Bleu, "Trois hommes arrêtés après avoir volé plus de 200 000 EUR de GPS sur des tracteurs," 2024-04-15. https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/faits-divers-justice/agriculture-trois-hommes-arretes-apres-avoir-vole-plus-de-200-000-euros-de-gps-sur-des-tracteurs-2557706 [^28]: France 3 Pays de la Loire, "Vols de tracteurs en série en Sarthe," 2024-09-30. https://france3-regions.franceinfo.fr/pays-de-la-loire/sarthe/le-mans/vols-de-tracteurs-en-serie-c-est-un-petit-peu-le-choc-pour-les-agriculteurs-delestes-de-leur-outil-de-travail-3024191.html [^29]: Terre-net, "Vols — page index." https://www.terre-net.fr/vol/t496 [^30]: IT-Matelec, "Vols de GPS agricoles : état des lieux 2025," 2025-04-10. https://www.it-matelec.fr/blog/vols-de-gps-agricoles-etat-des-lieux-2025-et-solutions-pour-securiser-ses-engins/ [^31]: France 24, "Ce crime 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Cite as

Machinetrail. "The most stolen tractors and heavy machinery in Europe in 2026: a country-by-country analysis" (2026). https://machinetrail.com/research/most-stolen-tractors-and-heavy-machinery-europe-2026.

Author

By Bertram Sargla, Founder at Machinetrail. Methodology questions and journalist enquiries: research@machinetrail.com.

Machinetrail. "The most stolen tractors and heavy machinery in Europe in 2026: a country-by-country analysis" (2026). https://machinetrail.com/research/most-stolen-tractors-and-heavy-machinery-europe-2026.