5 countries where women feel safer walking home alone at night than in the U.S.
If you’ve ever hesitated before walking six blocks back to your hotel alone at night, you’re not imagining anything — you’re reading the data correctly. The United States just ranked 31st out of 181 countries on the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Index, the leading global measure of women’s safety and status, published by Georgetown University and the Peace Research Institute Oslo. Only 58% of American women say they feel safe walking home alone at night.
That 58% figure comes from the same Gallup World Poll question researchers ask around the world: do you feel safe walking alone in your city at night? A handful of countries make the American number look almost middling. Here are five that do, using the freshest 2025/26 index data — plus one popular destination that doesn’t.
1. Singapore — 97% feel safe walking alone at night
Singapore posts the highest score of any country tracked in the index: 97% of women there say they feel safe walking home alone after dark. It ranks 17th overall on the full WPS Index, and its extensive MRT and bus network keeps most neighborhoods a short, well-lit walk from a stop. Ever wonder what a city with almost zero unaccompanied-woman anxiety actually looks like? This is probably it.
2. Norway — 86%
Norway ranks 3rd overall on the WPS Index, and 86% of women there report feeling safe walking alone at night, the second-highest figure on this list. Oslo’s compact size and high public trust in institutions do a lot of the heavy lifting. It also doesn’t hurt that for a stretch of summer, the sun barely sets at all.
3. Denmark — 85%
Denmark holds the overall #1 spot on the entire WPS Index, and 85% of Danish women say they feel safe walking home alone at night. Copenhagen’s famous bike culture keeps the streets busy well past dinner, which tends to make people feel less alone even when they technically are. Fewer dark, empty blocks, more strangers on bikes nodding as they pass.
4. Switzerland — 84%
Switzerland ranks 19th overall, but 84% of women there feel safe walking alone after dark, right on par with its higher-ranked neighbors. Multilingual cities like Zurich and Geneva run on punctual, heavily used public transit that rarely leaves anyone waiting alone on a platform for long. Given the country’s whole reputation for precision, would you really expect anything less?
5. Finland — 78%
Finland rounds out the top five WPS countries overall, ranking 5th out of 181, and 78% of Finnish women report feeling safe walking alone at night in cities like Helsinki and Tampere. That’s the lowest number on this list, and it’s still a full 20 points above the American figure. Helsinki isn’t flashy, but flashy was never really the point.
Here’s the twist nobody mentions: overall rank isn’t the same as feeling safe
New Zealand ranks 9th overall on the WPS Index, ahead of Switzerland and just behind Finland, and it gets recommended constantly as one of the safest countries on Earth. But only 47% of women there say they feel safe walking home alone at night — lower than the 58% in the US. Overall rank blends 13 different indicators, from parliament seats to maternal mortality, and it was never really built to double as a walk-home-alone forecast.
So if a country’s overall safety ranking has ever made you assume the streets will feel safe after dark, it’s worth checking that one specific number before you book the flight. Which of these would actually change how you travel?
