City Safety Index 2026
The world's 50 major tourist cities, ranked by a transparent 7-criteria formula. Every sub-score is published, every government advisory is linked, and every score can be recomputed by hand. No vibes — arithmetic.
If you searched for the top 50 safest cities in the world for 2026: this is that list — with the working shown.
Writing about this? Press kit, quotable findings and contact →
How the score works
Each city gets seven sub-scores (1 = safest, 10 = riskiest): crime 25%, scams 20%, political stability 15%, health infrastructure 15%, traffic safety 10%, natural disaster risk 10%, tourist police 5%. The weighted sum is the base score — full details on the methodology page.
The adjustment column: a steady-state formula cannot express "safe streets, but armed conflict may arrive." When a country-wide acute advisory applies (US Level 3 / AU "Reconsider"), we add a fixed +1.5 (+3.0 for Level 4 / "Do Not Travel") — shown separately, so you always see both truths: what the city is like day-to-day, and what the geopolitical overhang costs it. Remote regional warnings (e.g. border provinces 1,000 km away) do not trigger it.
Six findings that surprised us
Zurich and Singapore share the top spot at 1.4 — for opposite reasons. Zurich simply has nothing to worry about; Singapore engineers safety through strict law. Know the rules (vaping, drugs, even gum) and it is untouchable.
NYC (3.0) lands safer than London (3.2) and well ahead of Paris (3.9). Screen reputation says otherwise, but the data is clear: Manhattan tourist crime sits near multi-decade lows, while Paris logs ~150 tourist theft reports a day.
Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai share the best street-crime score in the index — 1, tied with Singapore and ahead of Zurich's 2 — and all three carry the same +1.5 acute-advisory adjustment. They still finish 32nd, 38th and joint 43rd. What separates them is the political sub-score: 6 for Doha against 10 for the other two. Identical streets, identical advisory, three different outcomes — visible because the columns stay separate.
On day-to-day risk Dubai is far calmer than Istanbul — base 3.5 against 4.9, built on near-zero street crime. The +1.5 conflict premium reverses the order entirely: Dubai finishes at 5.0, Istanbul at 4.9. It is the sharpest illustration of what the adjustment column exists for, and the two cities swapped places after our 27 July advisory review.
Delhi's 6.1 is the highest unadjusted score in the index: an aggressive scam ecosystem, hazardous winter air, and some of the world's most lethal traffic. Medellín (6.7) only passes it after Colombia's country-wide US Level 3 advisory is applied.
Bali and Phuket (both 4.6) owe their scores to two-wheeled traffic and nature — volcanoes, tsunamis, rip currents — not crime. The most likely way a tourist gets hurt there is a rented scooter, not a robbery.
The full ranking — all 50 cities
Click a column to sort. Click a city row to expand its seven sub-scores. Cities with a full TripGuards guide link to it.
Limitations — read before quoting
Scores are a point-in-time assessment (data frozen 2026-07-23) calibrated for an average tourist taking standard precautions. A solo female traveler, a business traveler, or a visitor with medical needs faces a different profile. Sub-scores are editorial judgments informed by the sources on our methodology page — they are transparent and consistent, not laboratory measurements.
Always verify with your government's official travel advisory before booking. Every row links the current US advisory; conditions in adjusted cities can change fast.
For journalists
The index is free to use, quote and republish with attribution. Everything below is written to be copied straight into a story — no permission request needed, no embargo, no paywall.
The dataset in one paragraph: The TripGuards City Safety Index 2026 scores the world's 50 most-visited tourist cities on seven weighted criteria — crime, scams, political stability, health infrastructure, traffic, natural disasters and tourist-police effectiveness — on a 1–10 scale where 10 is riskiest. Every sub-score is published, so any figure in the ranking can be recomputed by hand from the formula. Cities under a country-wide acute government advisory carry a separate, fixed premium on top of the base score, which keeps everyday risk and geopolitical risk visible as two distinct numbers.
Quick facts
- 50 cities · 7 criteria · 350 published sub-scores
- Edition 2026.1, data frozen 2026-07-23; acute advisories last re-verified 2026-08-22
- Safest: Zurich and Singapore, tied at 1.4 · Riskiest: Medellín at 6.7
- Cities with the same total share a rank, marked = in the table — the formula decides position, never the running order
- Independent and self-funded — no tourism board, insurer or destination has any input into the scores
- Full data as CSV at a permanent link — tripguards.com/safety-index-2026.csv — free to hotlink, cite or script against; the formula and its sources are on the methodology page
Five findings worth a headline
- New York (3.0) scores safer than London (3.2) and Paris (3.9) — the opposite of the reputations.
- Delhi (6.1) carries the highest base score in the index without any conflict involved: scams, air quality and traffic.
- Medellín only reaches the riskiest slot (6.7) once Colombia's country-wide advisory premium is applied — its base score is mid-table.
- Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai share the best street-crime score in the index (1, tied with Singapore) yet finish 32nd, 38th and joint 43rd of 50 — separated by the political sub-score, not by the advisory premium, which is identical for all three.
- Bali and Phuket (both 4.6) are ranked by scooters, volcanoes and rip currents — not by crime.
Available on request
A regional or thematic cut of the data prepared for your audience; an attributable quote on how a specific city or advisory change moves the ranking; or a walkthrough of how any single score was built, sub-score by sub-score. Same-day response in most cases.
How to credit: “TripGuards City Safety Index 2026” with a link to this page. Licensed CC BY 4.0.
Press contact: Fırat Duran, founder and editor — firat@tripguards.com · about the editor