The US Has a Higher Murder Rate Than Portugal, Spain, and Japan Combined

It's the question I get more than any other. Usually from someone who's already sold on the cost-of-living math, already daydreaming about the balcony in Lisbon or the beach in Playa del Carmen and then a well-meaning relative asks "but is it safe?" and the whole thing stalls.

Here's the part almost nobody says out loud when they ask that. They don't really mean crime in general. They mean something closer to home: am I going to get shot, or hurt, or caught up in something violent, in a way I wouldn't be back in the US? That's a fair thing to want to know before you build a life somewhere new. So let's actually sit with it, instead of waving it away with a reassuring "it'll be fine."

Most people picture the US as the safe default and everywhere else as the wildcard. But look at where violence actually happens, and that picture starts to flip. The US carries one of the higher murder rates among wealthy nations. It’s higher, in fact, than the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Japan combined. Places that feel exotic and unfamiliar on a map turn out to be some of the calmest, safest places a person can live.

That doesn't mean every country is equally safe, or that risk disappears the moment you leave. Mexico and Costa Rica, two of the most popular expat destinations, do carry meaningfully higher murder rates than the US. But even there, the danger isn't spread evenly; it's concentrated in specific regions tied to organized crime, not in the coastal towns and colonial cities where most expats and retirees actually settle. A national number can hide as much as it reveals. The same is true of the US itself: a country that blends Chicago's most dangerous blocks with a quiet town in Vermont into one "average" isn't telling you much about either place.

If there's one thing that explains most of this gap, it's guns. The US doesn't just have more violent crime than its peers; it has more guns than people. Over 120 per 100 residents, more than any other country on earth by a wide margin. Most of the places Americans move to abroad have the opposite relationship with firearms: strict laws, low ownership, and correspondingly low rates of gun death. Portugal's overall crime numbers look similar to the US on paper, but its firearm death rate is a small fraction of what it is at home. The type of danger changes, even when the headline "crime" number looks the same.

There's a second layer to this that rarely comes up: what happens when things go wrong and the police get involved. In the US, fatal encounters with law enforcement happen at a rate several times higher than in Canada, and dozens of times higher than in England and Wales — a country of 60 million people that recorded only a handful of fatal police shootings last year. For an American moving abroad, that's not a small detail. The idea that the people meant to protect you also carry meaningfully more risk than officers almost anywhere else you'd consider living is worth sitting with on its own.

None of this means moving abroad is risk-free — it just means the risk shows up in smaller, more manageable ways. Petty theft, pickpocketing, and tourist scams genuinely do run higher in places like Lisbon, Barcelona, Mexico City, and Bangkok than in the average American suburb. That's real, and worth planning around. But it's a different category of problem entirely. these crimes could be solved with a good bag and a little street sense, not the kind that keeps you up at night.

So when someone asks "is it safe over there," the honest answer isn't a blanket yes or no. It's this: on the risks that actually take lives, most of the world's popular expat destinations are safer than the US, not riskier. Where they fall short is smaller and easier to live with. The fear usually runs backwards — it's just aimed at the wrong country.

Live better. Spend smarter. Think globally.

Is it actually safer to live abroad than in the US? On violent crime specifically, often yes. The US murder rate is higher than the UK, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Japan. Most popular expat destinations in Western Europe and East Asia have significantly lower homicide and gun death rates than the US.

What is the safest country for American expats? By homicide and gun death rates, Japan, Singapore, and most of Western Europe (Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, Germany) rank far safer than the US. Iceland and Singapore consistently top global safety indexes overall.

Is Mexico safe for expats despite the murder rate? Mexico's national homicide rate is skewed by cartel violence concentrated in specific states. Popular expat areas like Mérida, San Miguel de Allende, and much of the Yucatán report crime levels closer to a typical American suburb. Research safety city-by-city, not by national average.

Why is the US murder rate higher than most expat destinations? A combination of firearm availability (the US has more civilian guns than people), weaker gun regulation compared to peer nations, and higher rates of gun-related homicide and suicide than any other wealthy democracy.

Does moving abroad increase my risk of petty crime? Often yes. Pickpocketing, scams, and theft rates in tourist-heavy areas of cities like Lisbon, Barcelona, and Mexico City can run higher than in a typical US suburb even though violent crime risk is lower. It's a real tradeoff, just a lower-stakes one.

How do police interactions compare between the US and abroad? Fatal encounters with police happen far more often in the US than in most developed expat destinations, including Canada and England and Wales, where they're rare by comparison.