Safest Countries by Homicide Rate· by homicide rate
Every country, ranked from safest to most dangerous by one hard number: the intentional-homicide rate. Worldwide it runs about 5.2 per 100,000 people a year — but the safest country, Oman, sits at just 0.1, while the highest on this list reaches 76.3 in Turks and Caicos. This measures lethal violence only — not war, terrorism, civil liberties or overall safety — and rows with a reported rate of zero (usually a data gap) are excluded across 195 countries.
The world, ranked safest first
Color runs cobalt along the legend — safest by homicide rate at one end, most dangerous at the other. Pick a metric above — the map and the ranked list beside it move together. The four safest are labeled; hover or tap any country to read its figure. This is lethal violence only, and each country is shown at its most recent available year, so the data year differs from country to country.
Tap a country to read its homicide rate.
Natural Earth 10m · Crimea shown as Ukraine · source: World Bank, CC BY 4.0
Every country, ranked safest first
The complete table, safest (lowest homicide) at the top. Click a column to sort. The year column is the most recent year with data for each country — it is not the same year everywhere.
| # ▲ | Country | Homicide / 100k | vs world | Data year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Oman | 0.1 | -5.1 | 2023 |
| 2 |  Singapore | 0.1 | -5.1 | 2023 |
| 3 |  Qatar | 0.1 | -5.1 | 2022 |
| 4 |  Japan | 0.2 | -5.0 | 2023 |
| 5 |  Bahrain | 0.2 | -5.0 | 2022 |
| 6 |  Kuwait | 0.2 | -5.0 | 2020 |
| 7 |  Indonesia | 0.3 | -4.9 | 2022 |
| 8 |  Vanuatu | 0.3 | -4.9 | 2020 |
| 9 |  Senegal | 0.3 | -4.9 | 2015 |
| 10 |  Hong Kong | 0.4 | -4.8 | 2023 |
| 11 |  French Polynesia | 0.4 | -4.8 | 2009 |
| 12 |  South Korea | 0.5 | -4.7 | 2023 |
| 13 |  China | 0.5 | -4.7 | 2020 |
| 14 |  Brunei | 0.5 | -4.7 | 2013 |
| 15 |  Switzerland | 0.6 | -4.6 | 2023 |
What this number really means
The intentional-homicide rate — murders per 100,000 people per year — is the single most reliable, internationally comparable measure of lethal violence. Unlike surveys of "how safe do you feel", a body is hard to hide or misreport, so homicide statistics are the backbone of global crime comparisons. That is why this ranking of the safest countries uses homicide, not a broader "safety" score.
But it is a narrow measure, and that is the honest caveat. It counts murder, and nothing else: not war, not terrorism, not traffic deaths, not how free or fair a society is. The very safest places here — Oman, Singapore, Qatar and the other Gulf and East Asian leaders — genuinely have very low murder rates, but several are also tightly controlled societies where "safe" and "free" are not the same thing. And small territories can post a 0.1 on a handful of years with no killings, which says little about the long run.
A low homicide rate is a real, meaningful achievement — most people would rather live where murder is rare — but it is not a full safety verdict. It says nothing about armed conflict, natural disaster, disease, road safety or political repression, and a country can be calm by this measure while being risky or unfree in other ways. For the broader picture, indices like the Global Peace Index and the Numbeo Safety Index fold in conflict, militarization and perceived safety. Read this page as a precise answer to one question — "where is lethal violence rarest?" — and its mirror, the most dangerous countries, as the other side of the very same number.
Five numbers worth remembering
The same dataset, squeezed into the facts people actually retell.
Where does a country stand?
Numbers land harder when one of them is a place you know. This looks up the homicide rate only — not overall safety.
Frequently asked questions
Which country has the lowest homicide rate?
By intentional-homicide rate, Oman, Singapore and Qatar are the safest on record — each about 0.1 per 100,000, per World Bank / UNODC data. Among large, developed countries, Japan has the lowest, at about 0.2 per 100,000. The world average is 5.2, so the safest countries are roughly 50 times below it.
Does the lowest homicide rate mean these are the safest countries to live in?
Not entirely — this is the key caveat. This ranks the intentional-homicide rate, which measures lethal violence within a population. A low rate genuinely means murder is rare, but "safety" in a broad sense also depends on war, terrorism, road deaths, disaster, disease and political freedom, none of which this counts. Several countries with very low homicide rates are also highly restrictive societies. Read it as "lowest murder rate", not a complete verdict on where it is safest to live.
What exactly does the homicide rate measure?
It counts intentional homicides — unlawful killings inflicted on purpose — per 100,000 people per year. It excludes deaths from war and armed conflict, terrorism, and accidents such as road crashes, and it does not include non-lethal crime like theft or assault. It is the most internationally comparable measure of lethal violence, which is why global safety and crime rankings are built on it.
Why does the data year differ between countries?
Because homicide reporting has gaps — not every country publishes every year. To keep the list as complete as possible, each country is shown at its most recent available year, which ranges from 1994 to 2023 across this ranking. The year is shown in every row so you can see how current each figure is; older figures are flagged.
Which regions are the safest by this measure?
The lowest homicide rates cluster in the Gulf — Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait — and in East Asia, led by Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong, with much of Europe close behind. In all, 43 countries record under 1 homicide per 100,000. These are real, low murder rates, though broader "safety" varies country to country.
How is this different from the Global Peace Index or Numbeo Safety Index?
This page ranks one hard, comparable number — the intentional-homicide rate — from World Bank / UNODC data. The Global Peace Index and Numbeo Safety Index are broader, composite measures that fold in armed conflict, militarization, political terror and perceived safety, using different methodologies. They answer a wider question about "safety" and "peace"; we link to them but do not reproduce their scores. Use this page for the murder rate specifically.
How many countries are in this ranking?
This page ranks 195 countries and territories for which the World Bank reports an intentional-homicide rate, using the most recent available year for each, safest first. Countries reported at exactly zero were excluded as likely data gaps. Homicide data has gaps, so coverage is a little lower than for indicators like population or GDP, but it spans nearly every country with a reporting system.
Cite this page
CC BY 4.0Our compilation on this page — the figures as arranged, ranked and dated here — is published under CC BY 4.0. Reuse it anywhere, including commercially, with a link back. The underlying data belongs to the organizations credited below.
Us, by Numbers. "Safest Countries by Homicide Rate." https://usbynumbers.com
Sources & further reading
Every figure here is built on one dataset: the World Bank’s intentional-homicide rate per 100,000 (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5), sourced from UNODC, released under CC BY 4.0.
- World Bank — Intentional homicides (per 100,000 people) (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5)primary dataset
- World Bank Indicators API — VC.IHR.PSRC.P5, all countrieslive API
- Vision of Humanity — Global Peace Index (broader safety & peace picture)broader safety index
- World Bank Open Data — public licenses (CC BY 4.0)license