Numbeo’s Safety Index is the largest crowdsourced measure of perceived safety in the world. It asks residents and long-term visitors how secure they feel in daily life, including the single question that matters most to anyone arriving somewhere unfamiliar: how comfortable would you be walking alone here at night?
The 2026 results are striking for how concentrated they are. Gulf cities take six of the top eight positions, the Netherlands places three cities in the top eleven, and the entire top thirty contains only one city from the Americas outside Canada.
One caveat worth stating plainly. This index measures perception rather than recorded crime. It reflects how safe people feel, which correlates with but is not identical to how safe a place statistically is. Read it as a guide to atmosphere and confidence rather than as police data.
We are counting down from number 15 to the city that has held first place for five years running.
#15. Zagreb, Croatia: 78.6
Zagreb is the highest-scoring capital in central and eastern Europe, and it consistently surprises visitors who arrive expecting a transit stop on the way to the Dalmatian coast.
The upper town, reached by one of the shortest funiculars in the world, retains a medieval street plan lit by gas lamps that are still lit by hand each evening. The lower town is nineteenth-century Austro-Hungarian, arranged around a sequence of parks known as the green horseshoe.
Cafe culture here is close to a civic institution, with terraces full from morning until late, and that constant occupation of public space is exactly what makes a city feel secure at night. Croatia’s adoption of the euro has also simplified matters for visitors.