tapwaterissafeGlobe

How it works

Methodology & sources

tapwaterissafe.com rates drinking-water safety for all 195 countries on a 0–100 scale. The goal is a fast, honest answer to one traveler question: can I drink the tap water here? Here’s exactly how that number is built — and what it isn’t.

The 0–100 score

Each country’s score blends two things. The dominant signal (75%) is a tap-drinkability assessment — how safe the water is to drink straight from the tap for a visitor, reflecting treatment reliability, distribution and storage, and established traveler guidance. The remaining 25% is anchored to official WHO/UNICEF JMP data on safely-managed drinking water access, so the score stays tied to measured reality.

Bands: 70–100 safe · 40–69 caution · below 40 unsafe. A handful of countries with strong local knowledge (e.g. UAE, Thailand, India) use a curated score with the JMP figure shown alongside for transparency.

Access is not the same as drinkability

This distinction matters. JMP measures whether people have access to a safely managed water source — which many countries have dramatically improved. It does not measure whether a tourist can safely drink from any given tap. India, for instance, reports ~76% safely-managed access, yet tap water is still widely unsafe to drink untreated. That’s why drinkability leads our score, with JMP shown as supporting context on every country page rather than as the headline.

The four factors

Beyond the headline score, each country is rated on four everyday uses — drinking, brushing teeth, ice, and cooking. These are derived from the score with use-specific thresholds: cooking (a rolling boil kills most pathogens) is the most forgiving; drinking straight from the tap is the strictest.

Data sources

JMP / UNICEF and Our World in Data are published under CC-BY and used here with attribution; CDC materials are US-government public domain.

What this is not

These scores are estimates for general guidance — not laboratory results, not a real-time water-quality reading, and not medical advice. Water quality varies by city, building, plumbing, and season. If you have a compromised immune system, are pregnant, or are traveling with young children, follow professional medical guidance and, when in doubt, filter, boil, or choose bottled water.