Warnely combines the lot into a single 0–100 score. Lower is safer. The list below is the 25 lowest-scoring countries in our 2026 ranking. We refresh it whenever a major source updates – usually weekly for FCDO and State, monthly for the structural indices – and the live score on each country page moves in real time when an active incident raises the risk.

If you only have ten seconds, here is the headline: Iceland, Switzerland, Singapore, Japan, and the Nordics dominate the top of the list, as they have for a decade. The interesting movement is further down, where Portugal, Slovenia, and the UAE have crept up over the last two years while New Zealand has drifted down slightly on the back of natural-hazard signals.

The top 25

| Rank | Country | Score | Tier | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | Iceland | 5/100 | Very Safe | | 2 | Switzerland | 6/100 | Very Safe | | 3 | Singapore | 8/100 | Very Safe | | 4 | Japan | 8/100 | Very Safe | | 5 | Denmark | 9/100 | Very Safe | | 6 | Norway | 9/100 | Very Safe | | 7 | Andorra | 9/100 | Very Safe | | 8 | Finland | 10/100 | Very Safe | | 9 | Austria | 11/100 | Very Safe | | 10 | Australia | 11/100 | Very Safe | | 11 | Slovenia | 12/100 | Very Safe | | 12 | Portugal | 12/100 | Very Safe | | 13 | New Zealand | 13/100 | Very Safe | | 14 | Ireland | 14/100 | Very Safe | | 15 | Liechtenstein | 14/100 | Very Safe | | 16 | Luxembourg | 15/100 | Very Safe | | 17 | Estonia | 15/100 | Very Safe | | 18 | Czech Republic | 16/100 | Very Safe | | 19 | Canada | 16/100 | Very Safe | | 20 | Bhutan | 17/100 | Very Safe | | 21 | Germany | 18/100 | Very Safe | | 22 | South Korea | 18/100 | Very Safe | | 23 | Netherlands | 19/100 | Very Safe | | 24 | Spain | 19/100 | Very Safe | | 25 | Taiwan | 20/100 | Very Safe |

Scores reviewed May 2026. The live page for each country shows any changes since.

What the top of the list has in common

Look at the names above and a pattern jumps out. They are small or medium-sized, politically stable democracies, with one outlier each side: Bhutan (constitutional monarchy with explicit "Gross National Happiness" policy) and Taiwan (a vibrant democracy with a geopolitical asterisk that doesn't show up in day-to-day traveller risk).

Eleven of the top twelve are in Europe. The exceptions are Singapore, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Bhutan. That European concentration is a real phenomenon, not a measurement artefact. Most European countries have low violent-crime rates, strong public health systems, reliable infrastructure, no active conflict zones, and a high density of consular services for travellers from English-speaking countries.

The biggest single category they all score well on is healthcare. If something goes wrong on a trip, the country's emergency response capacity matters more than most travellers realise. Iceland has one functioning hospital for every 25,000 residents. Bangkok has one for every 80,000. That is not an irrelevant detail when you have appendicitis at 2am.

What changed in 2026

A few items worth flagging compared to last year's list:

Portugal moved up four places. Lisbon's pickpocketing problem hasn't gone away, but the structural indicators – health, infrastructure, civil-unrest risk – continued to improve. The country now sits below France and Germany for the first time in our ranking.

Slovenia is the dark horse. Almost no one we surveyed knew where it ranked. The answer: 11th globally, ahead of Australia. Low crime, good roads, an unusually robust healthcare system for a country of two million, and no recent civil unrest of consequence.

Bhutan entered the top 25. Visa rules changed in late 2024 to make independent travel easier; the underlying safety profile has been strong for years.

New Zealand drifted slightly. Not from any single event – the slow accumulation of natural-disaster signals (Auckland flooding, Wairoa earthquake aftershocks, Whakaari volcanic activity) pushed the natural-hazard sub-score up.

Hong Kong is no longer on the list. It used to be. Political instability dropped it out two years ago and it has not recovered enough to return.

Safest by category

For travellers who care about one category specifically, the rankings shuffle.

Lowest crime risk: Singapore, Japan, Iceland, UAE, Liechtenstein.

Lowest natural-disaster risk: Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Denmark, Estonia.

Lowest political instability risk: Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, New Zealand.

Best healthcare for travellers: Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Austria.

Best for solo female travellers: Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark.

You can dig into the sub-scores on any country page. Each one shows the six categories Warnely measures and a one-line note explaining the rating.

What this list doesn't tell you

A country-level score is a starting point. The variance between regions inside a country can be larger than the variance between countries. Mexico is the obvious example: the State of Yucatán (Mérida, Valladolid) is one of the safest places we cover, and the State of Guerrero (Acapulco) is one of the more dangerous. The country composite tells you very little about either.

For countries with sharp internal variation – the United States, Mexico, India, Brazil, South Africa, the Philippines – read the regional breakdown on the country page, not just the headline score.

The score also doesn't tell you about your specific traveller profile. LGBTQ+ travellers face a different map. So do women travelling alone, business travellers visiting industrial sites, or people on prescription medication that might be controlled in the destination. The country guide breaks each of those out.

See also