Fractures in planetary lithospheres are used by impact cratering and other tectonic processes to shape the surface of a planet, as they play important roles in the location or geometry of planetary landforms. On Mercury, distributions of fault-related landforms show a global pattern of preferred orientations. Fractures also produce straight impact crater rims and polygonal planform crater shapes, but their orientations have not been investigated across Mercury’s surface. To test if fracture sets govern the shape of craters, all rims of impact craters with diameters between 20 and 400 km were mapped. The orientations of 115,884 rim segments were used to assess if they are part of a tectonic pattern. Results show strong preferred east-west orientations at the poles and weak north-south preferred orientations in mid-latitude and equatorial regions, revealing a global fracture pattern that compares well to previously observed tectonic patterns.