BELGRADE (The Thursday Times) — Pakistan’s capital has beaten Paris, New York and London in Numbeo’s 2026 Mid-Year Quality of Life Index, scoring 140.7 against 138.8 for Paris, 137.3 for New York and 135.8 for London, in a ranking that highlights Islamabad’s safety, climate and affordability.
Islamabad also topped every other Pakistani city in the index, finishing well ahead of Lahore at 98.4 and Karachi at 76.1. The capital also outperformed Kuala Lumpur, Budapest and Johannesburg.
The index combines purchasing power, safety, health care, cost of living, housing affordability, traffic, pollution and climate. Islamabad’s strongest results came in climate, where it scored 76.9, and in safety, with an index of 69.2. It also recorded a health care score of 63.7 and a pollution score of 41.5.
Affordability is a major reason for the capital’s standing. Islamabad’s cost of living index is 25.3, compared with 100.0 for New York, 88.2 for London and 78.6 for Paris, meaning residents face a fraction of the costs in the world’s most expensive cities.
The ranking adds to Islamabad’s record on safety. In Numbeo’s World Safety Index 2025, the capital ranked 93rd of 380 cities with a safety index of 67.9, ahead of London at 45.8 and Paris at 41.9. Islamabad Police credited a fall in crime of around 20 per cent compared with 2024, with 600 fewer crimes reported.
A separate Visual Capitalist analysis of Numbeo’s August 2026 data, which ranks cities by percentile after removing price-linked components, placed Islamabad in the 65th percentile for quality of life, ahead of Seattle in the 50th, London and Paris in the 25th and New York in the 20th, and among the cities offering the best value.
Other cities scored higher on Numbeo’s own index, with The Hague leading at 221.5, followed by Eindhoven at 210.7 and Seattle at 182.5, and Islamabad’s purchasing power index of 43.7 shows where there is room to improve. Numbeo’s rankings are based on user-submitted data, and other indices rank cities differently.
Sources:
Numbeo: Quality of Life Index by City, 2026 Mid-Year
Visual Capitalist: Ranked, 100 Global Cities by Quality of Life and Cost
Numbeo: World Safety Index 2025, and Islamabad Police statement of 30 April 2025
