| # | City | Safety | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Singapore | 9.8/10 | 8.6/10 |
| 02 | Tokyo | 9.5/10 | 8.1/10 |
| 03 | Dubai | 9.5/10 | 7.9/10 |
| 04 | Lisbon | 9.0/10 | 8.5/10 |
| 05 | Vienna | 9.0/10 | 8.3/10 |
| 06 | Porto | 9.0/10 | 8.0/10 |
| 07 | Taipei | 9.0/10 | 8.0/10 |
| 08 | Munich | 9.0/10 | 7.9/10 |
| 09 | Tallinn | 9.0/10 | 7.7/10 |
| 10 | Amsterdam | 8.5/10 | 8.4/10 |
| 11 | Prague | 8.5/10 | 8.2/10 |
| 12 | Seoul | 8.5/10 | 7.8/10 |
| 13 | Split | 8.5/10 | 7.4/10 |
| 14 | Valencia | 8.0/10 | 8.1/10 |
| 15 | Berlin | 8.0/10 | 8.0/10 |
RANKING · METHOD ON FILE
Safest cities for expats
Why this table exists
METHODSafety is the first question most clients do not ask out loud and refuse to skip: it decides where you walk at night, what the insurance costs, and — for many families — whether the move happens at all. This table separates the safety assessment from the overall score so the two questions — 'is it safe?' and 'is it for me?' — are answered without blurring into one another.
How to read it
METHODTwo score columns, deliberately kept apart: a safety sub-score out of 10, and the dossier's overall composite beside it. Safety is assessed from international index data cross-checked against resident reports — street crime, violent crime, the personal-safety infrastructure (lighting, policing, emergency response), and the lived texture that indexes miss. The pairing matters because the columns diverge: Singapore leads at 9.8 and 8.6, Lisbon combines a 9.0 safety score with an 8.5 overall, and Split's 8.5 safety against a 7.4 overall shows a very safe city that scored lower on community and infrastructure.
Top of the table, explained
NOTESSingapore's 9.8 is the clearest number on the site — a city where the absence of street-level friction is a design choice, not an accident. Tokyo and Dubai sit at 9.5 for different reasons (a punctual, rule-bound system versus one built around surveillance and enforcement), and the trio below them — Lisbon, Vienna, Porto, Taipei, Munich, Tallinn, all on 9.0 — is the quiet answer to the safety question: no megacity reputation required. The reading the table rewards is the honesty of the columns: every 9.0 city here is also a place where a solo late-night walk feels unremarkable, and that feeling is the resident-report data the index cannot fake.
Common questions
FAQWho decides the safety score, and how?
We do, as a judgement from three inputs: international index data, our own local and client reporting, and the specific texture of each city. It is a 1–10 assessment with the basis stated on this page and the method on the /about/ page — not a black-box index number.
Why are Latin American cities absent from the top of the table?
Because the assessment puts them where the evidence does: Medellín, Mexico City and Buenos Aires are real and livable cities, and their dossiers say so — but the specific combination of street-level risk and the precautions it demands keeps them out of the top tier of this particular table. 'Lower here' is not 'unlivable there'.
Is 'safe' the same as 'free of transactional scams'?
No, and nowhere is. Every city on this table — including Singapore, especially Singapore — has real expat-targeting scams: fake landlords, fake visa agents, fake tax refunds. The safety scores street safety; financial fraud is a different threat model that the dossiers and /services/ page address separately.
Reviewed by Mgr. Nicolas Griss · ExpatTools advisory team · 6 September 2026.
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