Every year, the independent analytical project Numbeo publishes a fresh quality of life ranking, which helps to assess the comfort of living in different countries and cities around the world. According to data from July 2026, Slovakia took 33rd place among 89 countries, which is quite a good result, although slightly lower than neighboring states.
How is quality of life assessed?
Numbeo uses a comprehensive methodology that considers eight key indicators to form its Quality of Life Index (Quality of Life Index):
Purchasing power: How much the population's income covers expenses.
Cost of living: Average expenses for current needs.
Housing affordability: Ratio of real estate prices to income.
Pollution: Level of air and water pollution.
Safety: Crime rate and overall safety.
Health care: Quality and availability of medical services.
Time on the road: Average time spent commuting to work or study.
Climate: Overall favorability of climate conditions.
These data are collected through user surveys and official sources, then processed by a special formula where higher scores indicate better quality of life.
Positions of Slovakia and neighbors
In the global country ranking, the leaders were the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Oman. Among our neighbors, the best scores were in Austria (7th place) and Germany (9th place). Czechia took 21st place, ahead of Japan and Croatia. Slovakia with an index of 161.96 is in 33rd place, only a tenth behind Taiwan but significantly ahead of Kuwait. Poland ranked 37th, and Hungary — 43rd.
Cities: Bratislava and regional centers
In the city ranking, which covers 305 settlements, the situation is somewhat different. The TOP-10 included five Dutch cities, with The Hague as the absolute leader. Amsterdam took 13th place.
Among German cities, Stuttgart was recognized as the best (6th place), and Vienna, the leader in Austria, is in 16th position. In Czechia, the highest quality of life according to Numbeo is in Plzeň (43rd place), while Prague is much lower, at 115th place.
Bratislava, the only city from Slovakia in this ranking, is in 70th position with an index of 157.9, or 155.40 according to other data. This indicates a high quality of life, although it lags behind Vienna. For comparison, Košice has an index of 157.45 but needs more data to improve the quality of the assessment. In Poland, the best city was Poznań (68th place), while Warsaw is much lower (75th place). Budapest from Hungary took 210th position.
