Best Cities to Invest in Latin America, CITY
EXPLORER
Full ranking, all 13 cities
The complete 2026 edition in one table. Scores run 0 to 100 and higher is always better. A dash means the source does not cover that city, which is not the same as a zero. Every figure comes from the published sources listed in the methodology. The composite scores and ranks are ours and free to reuse with credit, while each pillar column rescales figures that belong to their publishers.
Pillar sources: International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook, April 2026 · World Justice Project, Rule of Law Index, 2025 · Numbeo, Safety Index, retrieved September 2026 · Numbeo, Quality of Life Index, 2026 Mid-Year · INSEAD and Portulans Institute, Global Talent Competitiveness Index, 2025 · PwC, Worldwide Tax Summaries, reviewed 2026 · World Bank (discontinued series), Doing Business, Paying Taxes, 2020 edition, 2018 data · EF Education First, English Proficiency Index, 2025 (15th edition) · World Bank, Logistics Performance Index, 2023 · StartupBlink, Global Startup Ecosystem Index, 2025. Used with permission of International Monetary Fund, from World Economic Outlook, International Monetary Fund, April 2026; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
Source: Pro Latam Investment Hub, ProLatam Data Index 2026 (https://invest.pro-latam.org). Updated 2026-09-04. Version 2026.5.
How to cite this dataset
The composite scores, ranks, weights and methodology are published under CC BY 4.0: reuse them, including commercially, with credit and a link to https://invest.pro-latam.org. The underlying indicators belong to their publishers, who are credited and linked wherever a figure appears. They are not part of the downloads, and this licence does not cover them. Read the CC BY 4.0 licence. Published by Pro Latam.
Full reference
Pro Latam. (2026). ProLatam Latin American City Investment Index 2026 (Version 2026.5) [Data set]. https://invest.pro-latam.orgShort credit, for a chart or a slide
Source: Pro Latam Investment Hub, ProLatam Data Index 2026 (https://invest.pro-latam.org)Download the data
Composite scores, ranks, coverage, weights and methodology for every city, with the publisher and edition of each source so you can fetch the underlying figures yourself. Free, no sign-up.
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Rule of law, 2021 to 2025
Direction of travel on the pillar weighted 15% in the Data Index and 15% in the ProLatam Score. Scores run 0 to 1 and higher is better. The measure is national, so cities in the same country share it.
This is one pillar, not the index. A five-year history of the 2026 index itself would not be honest: seven of the ninepillars have no comparable series, because Numbeo keeps no archive, the Talent index skipped 2024 and changed its indicator set, the logistics index is not annual, EF added speaking and writing in 2025, and StartupBlink revises its algorithm every year and states that a fall has not necessarily meant worse performance. Holding the rest still and letting two move would draw a line that looks like the index and is not.
7 of the 10 economies weakened on the rule of law between 2021 and 2025. None improved by more than half a point on the 0 to 100 scale. The steepest fall is El Salvador at -0.057.
Source: World Justice Project, WJP Rule of Law Index, historical data file (2025 edition). Overall score, 0 to 1. Higher is better. WJP treats scores from 2015 onward as comparable across editions and publishes its own year-over-year change, which is why this series passed our trend audit when the other sources did not. A move under 0.005 is reported as flat rather than as a trend.
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Investing in Latin America
What are the best cities to invest in Latin America in 2026?
According to the ProLatam Data Index 2026, which is built only from public sources, the top five Latin American cities for investment are: 1) San José, Costa Rica (53.8), 2) Buenos Aires, Argentina (53.6), 3) Panama City, Panama (51.0), 4) Santiago, Chile (50.8), 5) San Salvador, El Salvador (49.1). The index combines Economic Dynamism (International Monetary Fund), Rule of Law (World Justice Project), Safety (Numbeo), Quality of Life (Numbeo), Talent (INSEAD and Portulans Institute), Tax Competitiveness (PwC), English Proficiency (EF Education First), Infrastructure (World Bank) and Innovation (StartupBlink). FDI inflows and sovereign credit ratings are published alongside as context but are not scored. Pro Latam also publishes a second weighting of the same pillars, the ProLatam Score, tuned for foreigners who move to, invest in or open a business in the region; its top three are Buenos Aires (51.1), San José (50.5) and Santiago (49.9).
How are Latin American cities ranked for investment?
Each city receives a ProLatam Data Index from 0 to 100 using nine weighted pillars: Economic Dynamism (15%, International Monetary Fund), Rule of Law (15%, World Justice Project), Safety (8%, Numbeo), Quality of Life (7%, Numbeo), Talent (13%, INSEAD and Portulans Institute), Tax Competitiveness (13%, PwC), English Proficiency (9%, EF Education First), Infrastructure (10%, World Bank) and Innovation (10%, StartupBlink). Every indicator is normalized to a 0 to 100 scale using fixed, published rules, and the weights sum to 100. When a source does not cover a city, that pillar's weight is redistributed and the coverage is shown. National indicators (IMF, WJP, INSEAD, World Bank, PwC) apply to every city in that country; Numbeo safety, EF English proficiency and StartupBlink rank are city-level. Source editions are listed next to each figure.
Which Latin American economies are growing fastest?
Based on IMF World Economic Outlook projections for 2026, the fastest-growing economies among the tracked cities are Panama (+3.8%, Panama City), Costa Rica (+3.6%, San José) and Argentina (+3.5%, Buenos Aires). Growth is a national figure and only one of nine pillars in the Data Index; a fast-growing economy can still rank lower on rule of law, safety or tax competitiveness.
Which Latin American countries are most tax friendly for foreign investors?
Measured on what a foreign shareholder actually keeps, that is corporate income tax plus the standard non-treaty withholding on dividends, the lightest burdens are Panama (32.5%), Peru (33.0%), El Salvador (33.5%) and Venezuela (34.0%). Costa Rica, Panama and El Salvador also tax on a territorial basis, so income earned outside the country is not taxed at all, which matters for holding and regional headquarters structures. Headline rates mislead in both directions: Chile advertises 27% but a non-treaty shareholder bears 44.45% because only part of the corporate tax is creditable, while Panama's low rate comes with 408 compliance hours a year. The Tax Competitiveness pillar therefore weighs the real burden on repatriated profit at 70% and compliance time at 30%.
Is it safe to do business in Latin America?
Safety and legal certainty vary widely by city and country. On the Numbeo Safety Index the safest tracked cities are Querétaro (63/100), Panama City (54/100) and Monterrey (52/100), and the strongest rule-of-law environments in the World Justice Project index are Costa Rica, Chile and Argentina. The ProLatam Investment Hub shows both indicators for all 13 cities so investors can compare conditions before deploying capital, and Pro Latam connects companies with verified local partners for market entry.
Figures quoted in these answers: International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook, April 2026 · World Justice Project, Rule of Law Index, 2025 · Numbeo, Safety Index, retrieved September 2026 · Numbeo, Quality of Life Index, 2026 Mid-Year · INSEAD and Portulans Institute, Global Talent Competitiveness Index, 2025 · PwC, Worldwide Tax Summaries, reviewed 2026 · World Bank (discontinued series), Doing Business, Paying Taxes, 2020 edition, 2018 data · EF Education First, English Proficiency Index, 2025 (15th edition) · World Bank, Logistics Performance Index, 2023 · StartupBlink, Global Startup Ecosystem Index, 2025. Used with permission of International Monetary Fund, from World Economic Outlook, International Monetary Fund, April 2026; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.