The FEMA National Risk Index is a free, public dataset that rates every US county and census tract for its risk from 18 natural hazards. It does not measure how likely a disaster is. It estimates expected annual loss, then adjusts that figure for how vulnerable the local community is and how well it tends to recover. The result is one composite risk rating per location, plus a rating for each hazard, that planners, buyers, and movers can use to compare places on the same scale.
If you have ever looked at a home and wondered "what is this place actually exposed to," the National Risk Index (NRI) is the closest thing the federal government has to a single answer. It was released by FEMA in 2021 and is updated periodically. It pulls together decades of hazard records, building and population data, and social and economic indicators into one nationwide model, so a location in coastal Florida and a location in central Kansas can be compared using the same method instead of two different local reports.
FEMA led the project, but it was built with a wide group of partners: university research teams, other federal agencies, and private-sector risk modelers. The underlying data and the full methodology are published openly. There is no paywall on the raw index. Anyone can view the national map or download the county and census-tract tables. What most people want, though, is not a spreadsheet of the whole country. They want the numbers for one specific address, read back in plain English, which is what a Disaster Risk Report pulls together.
The index rates each location for 18 natural hazards. Not every hazard applies everywhere. A location far from any fault line may show "No Rating" for earthquake, and a landlocked county will show no coastal flooding. That is expected, and it is useful information in itself.
| Water and weather | Wind and storm | Earth and fire |
|---|---|---|
| Riverine flooding | Hurricane | Earthquake |
| Coastal flooding | Tornado | Wildfire |
| Drought | Strong wind | Landslide |
| Heat wave | Hail | Avalanche |
| Cold wave | Lightning | Volcanic activity |
| Winter weather | Ice storm | Tsunami |
Each location gets a single composite rating, from Very Low to Very High, plus a national percentile that tells you where it sits against every other community. A location in the 90th percentile carries more expected loss than 90 percent of the country. The important thing to hold onto is what that number is built from. The overall rating is not raw hazard frequency. It is a blend of three components, described next.
FEMA builds the risk rating for each hazard by combining three ingredients, then composites the hazards into one figure.
| Component | What it captures | Effect on the score |
|---|---|---|
| Expected Annual Loss | The average dollar value of damage a hazard is expected to cause each year, based on how often it occurs and how much is in harm's way (buildings, people, agriculture). | Raises risk |
| Social Vulnerability | How susceptible the community's population is to lasting harm, using US Census indicators such as income, age, and access to resources. | Raises risk |
| Community Resilience | How well the community tends to prepare for, respond to, and recover from a disaster. | Lowers risk |
In shorthand, risk goes up with expected loss and social vulnerability, and down with resilience. Two places with identical hazard frequency can land on different ratings because one has a more vulnerable population or a weaker recovery track record. If you want the arithmetic spelled out, see how the National Risk Index is calculated.
The one caveat worth reading twice: a high rating often reflects a dense, high-value area as much as raw hazard frequency, and a low rating can hide a real hazard in a place that simply has less to lose. That is why a full report shows every hazard's own rating, not just the headline number. More on this in what expected annual loss means.
The National Risk Index estimates long-run expected loss. It cannot tell you whether a wildfire or flood will happen next year, and it does not claim to. Its value is comparison and prioritization: knowing that a home sits in the top tier for wildfire but the bottom tier for earthquake tells you where your insurance and mitigation dollars should go first. Read correctly, it is one of the most useful free tools a buyer or a mover has. Read as a crystal ball, it will mislead you.
From here, it helps to see how these ratings play out across the country. Our guide to natural disaster risk by state shows which hazards dominate which regions, and the guide to the safest places from natural disasters explains what "safe" really means on a loss-based index. For the full method, FEMA publishes the complete National Risk Index technical documentation, and our own methodology page shows exactly how we turn it into a report for one address.
We are an independent report built on FEMA's public data. We are not FEMA, not an insurer, and not an official disaster determination.
