Barcelona scores 5.8/10 on overall safety. V-Dem rates Spain 69/100 on how equally social groups are treated in law, but institutional equality and street-level experience can differ. Here's what the data and real reviews say.
Barcelona scores 5.8/10, in the mostly-safe range. It is generally fine, with a few precautions depending on the neighborhood and time of day.
V-Dem rates Spain at 69/100 on how equally social and ethnic groups are treated in civil liberties, in the mid range. It reflects laws and institutions, not street-level experiences, which can differ by neighborhood. The reviews below add the ground-level view.
There is no global index of how safe a city is specifically for Black travelers, and we won't invent one. This page combines the city's overall safety score, a structural equality indicator from V-Dem, and, where Black travelers have reviewed Barcelona, their own words. Together they give a fuller, honest picture than any single number.
Every score on this page comes from official indicators and the safety model, not from AI-generated text. Where travelers who share your profile have reviewed Barcelona, you'll find their words below. Last reviewed 2026.
Sources: Georgetown WPS Index, Equaldex, UNESCO, World Bank, OpenStreetMap (ODbL), Wikidata (CC0) and MapSur community reviews. How we score
Social-group equality data: Social group equality in civil liberties (v2clsocgrp), v16, V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy), University of Gothenburg, via Our World in Data. Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; values normalized by MapSur. Source.
Recent reviews of Barcelona from the MapSur community.
Barcelona is hands down the best city for gay travel in Europe maybe the world. The Eixample neighborhood (aka Gayxample lol) is incredible. My boyfriend and I held hands everywhere no problem. Sitges…
J'ai adoré Barcelone pour la culture et la gastronomie. Mais en tant que femme noire, j'ai été ciblée par des pickpockets deux fois sur les Ramblas. Une fois on m'a ouvert mon sac à dos sans que je m'…
Find a hotel near the neighborhoods mentioned in reviews.
Barcelona scores 5.8/10 on general safety (crime, all visitors). That number doesn't capture racism specifically, so for Black travelers it's a starting point, not the answer. The structural equality indicator and the reviews from Black travelers on this page fill that gap.
It's V-Dem's measure of how equally social and ethnic groups are treated in civil liberties in Spain (69/100). It reflects laws and institutions, not day-to-day street experiences, which is why the reviews from Black travelers on this page matter alongside it.
