Released in December 2025, the World's 10 Least Stressful Cities to Live In list ranks, as its name suggests, the cities where it's most comfortable, convenient, and hassle-free to live in.

Two Australian cities, namely Canberra and Melbourne, made it to the list. Neither city, however, didn't quite top said list—that distinction goes to Eindhoven in the Netherlands.

Can you guess what their ranks are?

Key Metrics

Before we get to that, let's first look at how Remitly came up with the list. According to Travel + Leisure, five key metrics were considered:

  • Average time to travel 10 kilometers
  • Annual pollution levels
  • Cost of living index
  • Health care quality and accessibility
  • Crime index

Each city is then ranked on a scale from one to 10. 10 is the highest level of resident stress. To give you an idea, New York has been ranked the most stressful city to live in as it scored 7.56 out of 10.

Ireland's Dublin and Mexico's Mexico City rank second and third, respectively.

On other hand, Eindhoven has a stress score of 2.34 out of 10, which earned it the top spot. Another city in the Netherlands, Utrecht, landed second place with a stress score of 2.67 out of 10.

Canberra

Canberra
Linda Xu / Unsplash

So which city came third among the top 10 least stressful cities to live in? Well, that honor goes to Canberra, which has a stress score of 2.80 out of 10.

According to Remitly, the cost of living in Canberra is lower that both Eindhoven and Utrecht. However, the Australian capital has a higher crime index and lower health quality, which prevented it from ranking higher than the two cities.

Melbourne

Melbourne
Denise Jans / Unsplash

Melbourne, on the other hand, landed in ninth place with a stress score of 2.98.

In comparison to Canberra, metrics of Melbourne show that the latter has a lower cost of living but a higher crime index and a lower health quality.

You can view the complete list as well as the metrics used here.