The World's Safest Places To Retire

What destinations are the safest places to retire?

Your motivations for an overseas move are likely as individual as you are but one universal desire shared by all want-to-be expats is to enjoy life in a true safe haven.

One look at the nightly news is enough to make even the bravest soul fearful. And while crime rates are sadly spiraling in North America, happily that’s not the case everywhere.

When it came to compiling our Overseas Retirement Index for 2025, we knew the category of crime was essential to include.

Of course, we don’t recommend any destination that’s dangerous and we know that no place in the world is completely safe…but there are a few that come pretty close…

Our Overseas Retirement Index uses a grading system and, in the crime category, five destinations secured an A+ or A grade.

In these locales, day-to-day crime is simply not a concern.

Sure, like anywhere these days, you lock your doors at night, but in these spots you can be as near to certain as can be that violent crime is not going to affect you.

To compile our Overseas Retirement Index every year, we use as much data as possible to inform our assessments. For instance, we use information from the Global Peace Index to determine each destinations’ crime score.

This is to provide objectivity, giving each index destination’s position in the rankings and comparing this to Canada and the United States’ positions.

So, if having zero concerns about safety is high on your list of criteria, and the freedom that comes with knowing you can walk around day or night without worrying appeals to you, then these A-grade destinations should be on your retirement radar.