🇬🇾 Co-operative Republic of Guyana
Visiting: High RiskLGBT visiting: Dangerous
Guyana is safe to visit, with a few things to know first. Same-sex relationships are criminalised, with penalties up to life imprisonment, which places it 162nd for LGBT rights, so LGBT travellers should weigh this carefully. Violent crime is the defining risk: homicide ranks 161st, one of the highest rates in the world. Even so, there is no conflict at all, ranking 1st, and freedom is well protected, at 37th.
Homicide
Intentional homicides per 100,000 people — lower is better.
Guyana: 15.6
Ranked 20th in the world for the highest homicide rate.
Why this rank?
Sixteen killings per 100,000 people a year is well over the ten that marks the deadliest countries.
Is it safe to visit?
Take it seriously. The rate is two and a half times the world average, and three in five killings are by strangers.
Why we updated the score?
The police have published their 2025 murder count, 130, up from 117. The UN takes its figure from the police a year later, so we used the new count.
Road Fatalities
Road-traffic deaths per 100,000 people per year — lower is better.
Guyana: 15.2
Ranked 71st in the world for the deadliest roads.
Why this rank?
Fifteen deaths per 100,000 people a year is just above the world average of fifteen.
Is it safe to visit?
Not safe, and it reaches everyone — a quarter of the deaths are motorcyclists, a quarter pedestrians and a sixth cyclists.
Conflict — world number one
Conflict deaths inside the country in the last twelve months, as recorded by the Uppsala conflict database, civilians killed on purpose, and any UN sanctions or court order over a war. The worst of those sets the colour. Lower is better.
Guyana: 1.00
Ranked 1st least conflict-affected country in the world.
Why this rank?
Nothing on record. The Uppsala conflict database has never recorded a conflict death in Guyana since its records began in 1989.
Is it safe to visit?
Safe. The troops are on the border of the claimed Essequibo region and nothing has been fired. Georgetown and the interior are untouched.
Freedom
Six freedoms rated 0–4 by Freedom House — protest, speech, press, religion, movement and due process. The weakest rating sets the colour, and the total places the country inside it — higher is better.
Guyana: 8.39
Ranked 37th freest country in the world.
Why this rank?
In Guyana the lowest are press, movement and due process at 3. Total 21 of 24.
Is it safe to visit?
A parliamentary democracy with a robust civil society, rated one step from the top on four freedoms. Journalists have faced intimidation, in many cases from the government.
LGBT Rights
LGBT equality in law and daily life — higher is better.
Guyana: Life
Ranked 19th least equal in the world for LGBT people.
Why this rank?
It is the last country in South America to criminalise. Sex between men still carries life imprisonment on paper. Red by law.
Is it safe to visit?
Not safe to be open, though the law is unenforced. It props up the stigma the rest of the region has been dismantling.
Women's Safety
Women's safety — feeling safe out at night, political violence against women, a fair hearing in court, and how normal violence at home is, with the night figure setting a floor on the colour — higher is better.
Guyana: 7.76
Ranked 62nd safest country in the world for women.
Why this rank?
No attacks on women are recorded, and the courts rate fairly. Partner violence in the past year is ten percent, and one woman in ten thinks wife-beating can be justified.
Is it safe to visit?
Guyana is a reasonable choice for a woman travelling alone.