The Safest Cities in Latin America 2026 — Ranked by Real Data

Key findings — free to cite

Cuenca, Ecuador is the safest on this ranking for 2026, scoring 87/100 — against a set average of 68.8 across 41 cities.

Cuenca leads the field at 87/100.
Scale is no barrier. Santiago (4.8m people) still makes the top 15, scoring 72/100.
The average across all 41 qualifying cities is 68.8/100, so anything in the mid-80s and up is genuinely exceptional.
Ranked on Kakapo's safety score, built from national travel advisories from seven governments plus crime, transport and healthcare data.

The ranking

Ranked by Kakapo's overall safety score across Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and South America. The regional spread is large — the safest cities rival southern Europe, while others carry active advisories.

#	City	Safety score	Overall
1	Cuenca, Ecuador	87	87
2	Puebla, Mexico	86	86
3	Montevideo, Uruguay	83	83
4	Mérida, Mexico	83	83
5	Valencia, Venezuela	82	82
6	Florianópolis, Brazil	82	82
7	Brasília, Brazil	80	80
8	Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic	80	80
9	Guadalajara, Mexico	78	78
10	Quito, Ecuador	76	76
11	Barcelona, Venezuela	76	76
12	Rosario, Argentina	75	75
13	Uberlândia, Brazil	75	75
14	La Paz, Bolivia	73	73
15	Santiago, Chile	72	72

A score is a comparison, not a verdict. These are model estimates that let you rank cities like-for-like — not incident counts. A high-ranked city can still have a bad night, and a lower-ranked one can be perfectly enjoyable with the right habits.

And the other end of the table

For contrast, these are the lowest-scoring cities in the same pool on this metric — useful for calibrating what a given score actually means.

#	City	Safety score	Overall
37	Tijuana, Mexico	57	57
38	Salvador, Brazil	56	56
39	Lima, Peru	53	53
40	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil	52	52
41	Caracas, Venezuela	42	42

How we measured it

We queried the live Kakapo index for every city above 500,000 residents in scope, deduplicated by city (keeping the largest-population entity), and ranked them by safety score. The pool is every Latin American city over 500,000 residents with a live Kakapo score. Scores draw on national travel advisories from seven governments plus crime, transport and healthcare data; full weighting is at https://kakapo.travel/about/methodology. Scores are comparative model estimates, updated continuously, not incident counts — this page reads them live, so the numbers match the rest of the site.

Cite this study

This analysis is free to cite in journalism, research, or content — all we ask is a link back. Copy the attribution below:

Ready-to-use citation

Kakapo Editorial Team (2026). Safest Cities in Latin America 2026. Kakapo. https://kakapo.travel/blog/safest-cities-latin-america-2026

Writing a travel-safety story? We give journalists and researchers custom data pulls at no cost — a specific region, a deeper table, or a city-by-city breakdown. Email [email protected] and we usually reply the same day.

Kakapo publishes real safety scores for every destination, drawing on national travel advisories, local crime data, healthcare infrastructure, and night-safety measures. Kakapo Studies is our research imprint — independent editorial, no advertiser influence on scores. Contact: [email protected].