Our Data & Methodology
Transparency matters. Here is exactly how DateAtlas collects, processes, and scores dating data for 30 countries.
Written and maintained by Vicky from DateAtlas — the editorial byline DateAtlas research is published under. Who writes this.
All scores, indices, and rankings on DateAtlas — including dating scores, safety scores, cost indices, and any "best for" or comparison verdicts — are DateAtlas's own editorial estimates and opinions, derived from third-party data using the methodology below. They are interpretive estimates, not statements of objective fact and not guarantees of any product's safety, quality, or performance. They are distinct from any official app-store rating, and reasonable people may weigh these factors differently.
Data Sources
We aggregate data from five primary, publicly available sources. Each provides a distinct piece of the dating intelligence picture.
Numbeo
www.numbeo.comThe world's largest crowd-sourced cost of living and quality of life database. Millions of data points from residents and visitors across 10,000+ cities. We use it for safety indices, cost of living, and date cost estimates.
EF EPI (English Proficiency Index)
www.ef.com/epiThe world's largest ranking of countries by English skills, based on test data from 2.2 million adults across 111 countries. Critical for understanding communication ease while dating abroad.
Google Play Store
play.google.com/storeStar ratings, rating distributions, review volumes, and download bands for the dating apps we track, collected in a single scripted scrape of each app's Play Store listing. Play listings are global, so this tells us how an app is rated overall — not how it is rated country by country.
CIA World Factbook
www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/Public-domain demographic reference. We use its sex-ratio tables (at birth and by age bracket) for the male-to-female ratio shown on every country page, plus its languages-spoken data.
Our World in Data — LGBT+ Rights Index
ourworldindata.org/grapher/lgbt-rights-indexThe LGBT+ Policy Index (Velasco 2020), republished by Our World in Data, combines 18 individual policies such as the legality of same-sex relationships, marriage, and gender-marker changes. It is the quantitative input behind our LGBTQ+ score; because the underlying policy coding predates 2020, we adjust it editorially where the law has since changed, and label the result as our estimate.
How Scores Are Calculated
Dating Score (0–100)
The composite Dating Score is a weighted average of seven normalized factors:
| Factor | Weight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Safety | 20% | Numbeo Crime Index (inverted) |
| Cost Affordability | 15% | Numbeo Cost of Living Index (inverted) |
| English Proficiency | 15% | EF EPI Score |
| Gender Ratio | 10% | CIA World Factbook (proximity to 1.0) |
| LGBTQ+ Acceptance | 15% | OWID LGBT+ Rights Index (Velasco 2020) + editorial adjustment |
| Cultural Openness | 15% | Composite of tourism, expat, and attitude data |
| App Coverage | 10% | Number and quality of active dating apps |
Each factor is first normalized to a 0–100 scale using min-max normalization across all 30 countries. The weighted sum produces the final Dating Score.
Safety Index (0–10)
Derived from Numbeo's Crime Index. We invert the crime index (lower crime = higher safety) and scale to 0–10. In our framing, a score of 8+ is relatively high on our scale and below 4 is relatively low and warrants extra caution. This is our editorial estimate based on the criteria here, not a guarantee of safety; always take your own precautions and consult official sources.
Cost Index (Average Date Cost in USD)
Based on Numbeo's restaurant prices: a mid-range meal for two plus two domestic beers plus two cappuccinos. All prices are converted to USD for comparison. The index reflects a typical "going out" date rather than fine dining.
Data Freshness
Our data is not all the same age, and pretending otherwise would defeat the point of this page. Below is the snapshot actually powering the site today, and when we imported it. “Snapshot in use” is the vintage of the underlying source; “imported by DateAtlas” is when it entered our dataset.
| Source | Snapshot in use | Imported by DateAtlas |
|---|---|---|
| Numbeo | 2025 mid-year cost-of-living, rent, restaurant-price and safety indices | April 2026 |
| EF EPI | 116-country proficiency table (scores 394–636) | April 2026 |
| Google Play Store | Scraped 3 June 2025 (ratings, star distributions, review and download counts) | April 2026 |
| CIA World Factbook | 2024 sex-ratio and language tables | April 2026 |
| Our World in Data — LGBT+ Rights Index | Velasco (2020) policy coding, latest country values 2019 | April 2026 |
Two things worth being blunt about. First, the Play Store figures are a June 2025 scrape — ratings and review counts will have moved since, so treat them as a snapshot rather than today's number. Second, the LGBT+ Policy Index behind our LGBTQ+ score is genuinely old (2019–2020 policy coding); where the law has changed since, our score reflects our editorial adjustment, not the source. Both are on the refresh list. Editorial content on app and country pages is updated independently of these source imports.
Limitations
We believe in being honest about what our data can and cannot tell you.
- Scores are opinions, not facts. Every score, index, ranking, and "best for" verdict is our own interpretive estimate and editorial opinion derived from the data above. It is not a statement of objective, verifiable fact about any app, company, or country, and should not be treated as a definitive measurement of quality, safety, or performance.
- Crowd-sourced bias. Numbeo data skews toward urban areas and English-speaking respondents. Rural areas and non-tourist cities may not be well represented.
- Estimation gaps. When primary data is missing, we use regional estimates. These are clearly labeled but are inherently less reliable than direct measurements.
- Country-level aggregation. Dating culture and safety can vary enormously within a country (e.g., Bangkok vs. rural Thailand, Berlin vs. rural Germany). Our scores represent national averages.
- App data limitations. We primarily use Google Play Store data. iOS-only apps or apps with limited Play Store presence may be underrepresented.
- Cultural nuance. Quantitative scores cannot fully capture the nuance of dating culture. We supplement with editorial content where possible, but a number cannot replace lived experience.
- Rapid change. Laws, app popularity, and social attitudes change faster than our source imports. As the freshness table above shows, the lag is months, not days — and for the LGBT+ policy input it is years. We would rather show you the real vintage than imply a refresh cadence we do not currently hit.
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If you spot incorrect data, outdated information, or have firsthand knowledge that contradicts our scores, please let us know. Community feedback is essential to improving data quality.
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