Zurich takes second place in a US travel insurer's safety ranking
Montreal tops the list for 2027. Those surveyed were US travellers; one of the additional indices used is also based on personal assessments.
Zurich ranks second in the new city safety ranking by Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection. Montreal places ahead of the Swiss city, followed by Amsterdam, Tokyo and Reykjavik. The US travel insurer published its recommendations for the 2027 travel year on 28 October 2026. Zurich moves up one place compared with the previous year's list.
The comparison covers 38 cities popular with US travellers. More than 1,500 people were asked which of them they had visited. Only their own travel experiences were allowed to feed into each rating. The survey took place in August. It is supplemented by indices from Numbeo and The Economist as well as ratings from GeoSure Global, which the provider combines into a weighted result.
The additional data source is also a survey
Anyone expecting official case numbers alongside travel experiences has to look more closely. Numbeo itself explains that its crime index is built from answers given by website visitors. Respondents are asked, for example, about perceived crime, how safe they feel during the day and at night, and about worries over robbery, theft or physical assault. The safety index essentially mirrors the crime index on a reversed scale.
Numbeo says it filters out suspicious entries and, for the continuously updated index, draws on data from the past five years. The platform explicitly points out that perceptions can diverge from official statistics. The additional figure in the city comparison is therefore not automatically an independent count of offences. Beyond the survey of travellers, subjective experience again feeds in, at least through this component.
Such experiences have a value of their own. Someone who does not dare walk alone on the street at night experiences a destination differently from someone who moves around freely there. Yet a feeling cannot be used to calculate the probability of being robbed during a three-day stay. A perception survey already lacks the number of comparable stays and the registered offences that go with them.
Police figures show what has been recorded
The Swiss police crime statistics start from a different point. They appear annually and refer to the previous, completed year. They count offences that have become known to the police. The Federal Statistical Office describes this data basis as the bright field: offences that are not reported or not detected remain outside the records. An official statistic therefore does not capture the full picture either.
According to the FSO's explanation, reporting behaviour, police control activity, cantonal practice and changes in the law all influence the figures. More recorded cases can be linked, among other things, to victims reporting more often or to the police carrying out more checks. Comparisons are also shaped by tourism, proximity to a border and other regional particularities. A high figure is hard to interpret without this context.
In the canton of Zurich, the number of offences known to the police fell by 5 percent in 2025. Nevertheless, the 104,632 recorded violations of the Criminal Code were, according to the cantonal statistics, the second-highest level since the rise after the pandemic. These figures cover the whole canton, not just the city. They can be used neither to confirm nor to refute Zurich's position in the travel comparison.
What counts for a booking is the situation on the day of travel
The year 2027 refers to the period for which the ranking makes its recommendations. It does not turn experiences from last August into a forecast for every month of the coming year. Anyone planning a trip needs additional information on the specific destination and date. The security situation may have changed since a survey was carried out.
The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs concentrates its travel advice on political risks and crime. It updates the advice when events change the assessment of the situation. The advice is, however, neither a rolling news bulletin nor a weather report; for meteorological developments and individual natural disasters, the department points to other information channels.
For travellers this suggests a sensible division of labour: the ranking helps with a first shortlist, while country advice and local notices help with concrete preparation. A fresh look at the authorities' information before departure is therefore worthwhile – even if the booked destination sits at the very top of the city ranking.
Sources
- BHTP: 2027 city ranking and methodology
- Numbeo: explanations of the crime and safety index
- FSO: police-recorded crime and notes on interpretation
- Canton of Zurich: offences in the 2025 crime statistics
- FDFA: travel advice briefly explained
- Lead image: Albinfo, Zurich in January 2026
- Lead image licence: CC BY-SA 4.0
- Article image: CanadianPhotographer, Montreal
- Article image licence: CC0 1.0
