Singapore has retained its position as the world’s leading maritime city in the 2026 Leading Maritime Cities report, the trade news site MarineLink said on 13 November 2026. The ranking, compiled by DNV and Menon Economics, marks the seventh consecutive edition in which Singapore has occupied the top place.
The LMC report evaluates cities across five broad pillars, and Singapore maintained its leading position in three of those pillars, Shipping among them, according to MarineLink. That continuity was noted in the 2026 edition of the study published by DNV and Menon Economics, which sets out to compare maritime centres on multiple dimensions.
The LMC ranking
The report’s continued placing of Singapore at the summit for a seventh successive edition highlights the city-state’s sustained performance as a maritime centre, as recorded in the 2026 LMC index reported by MarineLink. The finding reiterates a result that has now been repeated across successive reports produced by DNV and Menon Economics.
Pillars and performance
DNV and Menon Economics assess five pillars in the Leading Maritime Cities index, and MarineLink’s account of the 2026 report states that Singapore led three of those pillars, including Shipping. The 2026 outcome therefore indicates that Singapore’s strengths continue to be judged superior across multiple areas measured by the index rather than in a single dimension alone.
The LMC framework positions cities against one another using a composite of indicators clustered into the pillar structure; Singapore’s top ranking in three pillars underlines the broad base of its maritime capabilities as presented in the 2026 report. MarineLink’s coverage makes clear that the report and its methodology remain the reference for the annual assessment.
Singapore’s continued pre-eminence in the LMC report will be of interest to commercial operators, regulators and policy makers who watch the annual rankings as a barometer of global maritime competitiveness. While the 2026 report preserves an established order at the top, the LMC methodology applies the same set of pillars and measures across all assessed cities, enabling year-on-year comparison within a consistent framework.
The MarineLink item of 13 November 2026 presents the 2026 LMC findings as confirmation of Singapore’s long-running leadership in the index compiled by DNV and Menon Economics. The report’s authors and the trade press together provide the published record for this latest edition of the Leading Maritime Cities study, which remains a focal point for discussion on the relative strengths of maritime hubs worldwide.
As the maritime sector continues to face economic and regulatory shifts, rankings such as the LMC offer a snapshot of comparative standing based on the pillars the report sets out to measure; in 2026 Singapore again topped that snapshot, according to MarineLink’s account of the DNV and Menon Economics report. For now, the 2026 LMC confirms a streak of leadership for Singapore extending across multiple editions of the study.