2026 FM Resilience Index: Clarity for an increasingly complex risk landscape
- The 2026 FM Resilience Index ranks 130 countries and territories using 18 factors to assess how macro and physical risks affect business resilience.
- Denmark remains the most resilient country, while mixed gains and declines reflect pressures from inflation, cybersecurity gaps, and climate risk across regions.
- The index spotlights key trends—water stress, fire risk, energy intensity, and climate awareness gaps—and points to FM tools to help businesses strengthen resilience. In a volatile global business environment, the 2026 FM Resilience Index seeks to bring clarity to an increasingly complex risk landscape and deliver insights to act with confidence.
The index ranks 130 countries and territories by the resilience of their business environments. Rankings are based on 18 resilience factors including macro risks, such as political risk and inflation, and physical risks, such as fire risk quality and climate exposure. The impacts from ongoing geopolitical tension, continuing recovery from inflation, and the acceleration of new technologies are all evident in this year’s results.
- Denmark once again tops the most resilient countries in the world, significantly improving cybersecurity by 20 ranks and raising its scores for climate risk exposure, climate risk quality and fire risk quality.
- Singapore rises to 3 this year, by making substantial gains across several factors: inflation by 35 ranks, climate risk exposure by 12, fire risk quality by 7 and climate change exposure by 6.
- With an increasing focus on data sovereignty, countries in addition to Denmark are strengthening their cybersecurity. The Netherlands has improved its score by 25 ranks and Spain by 11. However, progress in Europe is uneven, with Norway slipping by 11 in this ranking and Germany by 7. The trend in their cybersecurity rankings serves as a potential early indication of an area for improvement in these countries, which remain highly ranked overall.
- Brazil saw its overall ranking fall by 14, driven largely by dropping 22 ranks in inflation. It continues to struggle with the impacts of climate-related risk, declining 13 ranks for climate risk exposure and 10 each for climate risk quality and climate change exposure. Mexico, meanwhile, dropped by 4 ranks overall, to 80, driven by decreases in macro factors including health expenditure and internet usage.
- The United States’ Zone 3 fell as well, only by 1 rank overall to 11, but now placing all regions of the country out of the top 10. Representing the central/midwest US, Zone 3 lost 9 ranks in climate risk quality and dropped slightly in fire risk quality.
You can look up where you live, work and have operations or suppliers on our interactive page with the full index at fm.com/resilienceindex.
10 most resilient countries
Denmark continues to be the world’s most resilient business environment according to the 2026 FM Resilience Index. Next (in order) are Luxembourg, Singapore, Norway, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Ireland, Finland and Belgium.
Spotlight on resilience trends
The FM Resilience Index uses 18 equally weighted measures to rank the overall resilience of 130 countries and territories. By design, the overall ranking of any single country moves slowly year over year. Even seemingly large changes in one of the 18 measures may not significantly affect a country’s overall ranking. This section discusses some of the underlying data on individual drivers affecting – but not drastically, at least not yet – a country’s risk profile.
Water stress and fire risk
Water stress and fire risk quality are emerging as closely linked physical risk drivers that businesses should consider when planning for expansion or preparedness. Their intersection is especially critical for data centers, where low water stress is essential for reliable cooling and fire suppression. The ongoing transition from fossil fuels to battery-based power systems may create more exposure to fire risk. This could be further compounded by the increasing frequency of wildland fires driven by climate change and outdated forest management practices.
Dr. Louis Gritzo, FM staff senior vice president, chief science officer, is watching these developments closely. “Water is still the best way to put out a fire, and in many places, there are severe limitations on water availability,” Gritzo said. “The changing climate, increased temperature and the drive to be more sustainable through electrification – there are a lot of factors that add up to produce a very rapidly changing hazard.”
Countries in the bottom third of water stress rankings include China, Germany, Mexico and Spain. Of these, Mexico alone stands out as also being in the bottom 50% of fire risk quality. Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all score lower than 90 for resilience to water stress and border each other in an extremely arid region.
Strengthening building codes offers an effective path to reducing fire risk and countries are taking action. The UAE ranks 42 in fire risk due in part to the quality and enforcement of its building codes. Germany and Sweden recently updated their codes, with the Netherlands and Poland to follow in the coming year. Japan has continued to improve both its codes and its ranking.
What you can do: FM’s data sheets help you reduce the chance of property loss by providing proven engineering guidelines and standards for protection from fire risk, extreme weather and equipment failure. They incorporate nearly 200 years of loss prevention experience and are freely accessible.
Energy intensity
Turning once again to data centers and their rapid expansion, low energy intensity and high energy efficiency are key components in selecting construction locations. While Denmark, Ireland and Switzerland stand out as top rated countries both in terms of overall resilience and energy intensity, many top overall countries lag in energy efficiency.
Singapore is a bit of a surprise, given its overall resilience score of 96.1and ranking at 3. Yet at 116 for energy intensity, it is clearly underperforming in this vital area. Belgium, Finland and Norway, while ranking overall at 10, 9 and 4 respectively, also have lower than expected energy scores for such high performers.
While a top energy producer, The United States comes in at 99 for energy intensity, demonstrating a disconnect between the country’s high level of production and its ability to use that energy efficiently.
What you can do: Watch FM’s exclusive webinar Data Centers: Tackling the risks. Hear from leading experts in the field how to build resilience into your data centers and stay ahead of any challenges that may arise.
Climate risk exposure
Weather is continuing to change rapidly worldwide, outpacing many businesses’ awareness of the exposure they face. While awareness leads to preparedness and resilience, a lack of insight can threaten the stability of crucial operations and supply chains.
FM recently surveyed 800 risk decision-makers, asking them to identify where their business-critical operations are located, then estimate the percentage of that country's economic activity exposed to wind and flood risk. The result: 74% underestimate their actual exposure.
This awareness gap is widest in China and India, followed by Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. Of those, only Canada’s Zones 2 and 3 and India’s Zone 3 rank above 100 for resilience to climate exposure. France, Germany, Singapore and the United States each show the most alignment between perceived and actual exposure, with the central/Midwest United States overestimating risk.
Notably, despite underestimating risk, China continues to demonstrate strength in its base natural hazard building codes and has improved its ranking in Zones 1 and 2 as a result.
What you can do: FM’s NatHaz Toolkit provides free resources, including powerful tools to help you prepare for and respond to extreme weather. For FM clients, the interactive Climate Resilience Tracker helps to accurately assess climate risk across all locations and identify opportunities to strengthen resilience.
Related Content: