Sydney has ranked as the world's 15th best city in Time Out's 2025 global rankings

Time Out has released the annual 50 Best Cities in the World list, and Sydney has moved up significantly in rankings, placing 15th best city on Earth for 2025 – a big jump from 31st place in 2024.

Time Out’s annual global list is based predominantly on locals’ own views on where they live. To rank cities, Time Out surveyed more than 18,500 local city dwellers on everything from their city’s food scene and nightlife to culture, walkability, public transport, affordability and city vibe. The global team then combined that data with insights from Time Out city experts from around the world.

Australia had four cities make the top-50 list – the most Australian cities ever. Melbourne made the top five cities on Earth (fourth place), scoring particularly well for ‘restaurants and eating out’ and ‘culture’. Perth landed in spot 33 and Brisbane 37, both making their debuts on the list.

Of course Sydney has its downsides (hi, lack of affordability and a housing crisis, and nightlife that's still in a rebuild phase), but the city also has plenty going for it, especially relative to other parts of the world. It won't come as a surprise that Sydney’s high position was based partly on the city’s beauty and our natural environment that allows us to enjoy outdoorsy lifestyles. Sydney was rated as the world’s third most beautiful city, and placed second in the ‘green spaces and access to nature’ category. 

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Sydney respondents also rated the city highly when it came to ‘walkability’ – which this city has rated highly for on other global surveys – as well as ‘quality of life’. We scored decently when it comes to ‘culture’ and ‘public transport’, too, and it’s likely that improvements in the PT area (hi, Sydney Metro) in the past year and ongoing contributed to boosting our 2025 results.

We’d add that we think Sydney’s incredible range of restaurants puts us up there with Melbourne’s dining scene, and we were pleased to see locals describe Sydney’s food scene as ‘diverse’ and ‘delicious’. They also agreed strongly with the statements, ‘My city makes me happy’ (a huge 88 per cent of respondents) and ‘I find joy in everyday experiences here’ (82 per cent).

Speaking of the Victorian capital – it made a big jump up from its 2024 position of 20th. This year, only three cities placed above Melbourne: Cape Town, Bangkok and New York (which was last year’s best city).

These are Time Out’s top 20 cities for 2025

(and you can check out the full list of 50 over here):

1. Cape Town
2. Bangkok
3. New York
4. Melbourne
5. London
6. New Orleans
7. Mexico City
8. Porto
9. Shanghai
10. Copenhagen
11. Chicago
12. Lisbon
13. Edinburgh
14. Hong Kong
15. Sydney
16. Amsterdam
17. Barcelona
18. Seville
19. Paris
20. Medellín

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