Haselhorst Smart City Ranking 2026 Emphasises Development over Placement

Munich, 15 September 2026. For the first time since the Haselhorst Smart City Ranking was launched in 2018, the ranking positions of individual cities will not be actively communicated this year.

“In our view, the focus on listing the placement of cities leads to a misunderstanding of the core concept of a smart city,” explains Dr Lucía Wright, Associate Partner at H&Z | Haselhorst Associates and head of the Smart City Ranking, adding: “The city ecosystem is highly complex, and many local governments are under immense pressure due to far-reaching changes and crises, particularly in financial and climate policy terms. The added value of a Smart City Ranking lies not in competing for individual positions, but in understanding stages of development, progress and appropriate peer groups.”

In light of this, the consultancy team has decided not to actively publish a ‘Top 10’ list of Germany’s smartest cities. As municipal digitalisation strategies mature, there is a growing realisation that smart city development is not a competition for top positions. Rather, cities differ considerably in terms of size, starting point, financial leeway and strategic objectives. A direct comparison of individual rankings does little justice to this diversity.

NATIONWIDE DEVELOPMENT LEVEL RISES TO 33.2 PER CENT

The results of the Haselhorst Smart City Ranking 2026 show that the digital and sustainable transformation of German cities is continuing to progress. Across all 418 cities examined, the average smart city level of development now stands at 33.2 per cent.

The influence of city size is particularly evident here: large cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants achieve an average development level of 44.6 per cent, placing them at the top of the national rankings. They are followed by small cities with 39.5 per cent, large medium-sized towns with 34.4 per cent and small medium-sized towns with 30.2 per cent.

“The results show that larger cities often benefit from established structures, greater scope for investment and greater organisational clout. At the same time, however, we are observing that many smaller local authorities are also consistently expanding their smart city activities and making significant progress,” explains Dr Lucía Wright.

ENERGY, THE ENVIRONMENT AND NEIGHBOURHOOD DEVELOPMENT ARE GROWING PARTICULARLY STRONGLY

A look at developments in the individual areas of action shows that issues relating to sustainability and resilience, in particular, are gaining in importance. The strongest growth compared with the previous year was recorded in the areas of energy & environment (+3.6 percentage points), buildings & neighbourhoods (+2.2 percentage points) and mobility (+2.0 percentage points).

The sectors of administration (+1.9 percentage points), education (+1.5 percentage points) and health (+1.2 percentage points) are also developing positively. Slightly smaller, but still measurable, progress is evident in the sectors of economy & trade (+1.2 percentage points) and tourism & culture (+0.8 percentage points).

“This trend illustrates that the ‘smart city’ concept today goes far beyond mere digitalisation. Cities are increasingly investing in climate-resilient infrastructure, energy-efficient neighbourhoods and sustainable mobility solutions. These issues will play a decisive role in shaping municipal transformation in the coming years,” says Dr Lucía Wright.

COMPARISON OF CITIES OF SIMILAR SIZE

“Urban stakeholders repeatedly tell us how important it is for them to compare themselves with other local governments of a similar size,” says Dr Lucía Wright.

The consultancy team has taken this as an opportunity to provide the following additional information this year: an interactive map on the website shows by what percentage a city has improved compared with last year, as well as showing the average level of smart city development across all cities nationwide and how a particular city deviates from this average.

COOPERATION INSTEAD OF ISOLATED EFFORTS

When asked how the smart city market will develop in future, the team led by Dr Lucía Wright has a clear view: cities are currently facing complex challenges. Not only are a wide variety of smart city funding programmes coming to an end, but the financial situation in local governments is extremely strained due to historically high levels of overall debt. At the same time, the impacts of climate change and a growing range of threats require investment for which the budgets of many cities simply cannot provide the necessary funds.

“Successful smart city development will be characterised more strongly by cooperation in future. Given limited financial leeway and growing demands for climate resilience, security of supply and digitalisation, cities and utility providers will have to work even more closely together,” Dr Lucía Wright is convinced.

METHODOLOGY

The Haselhorst Smart City Ranking is based on systematic data collection and analysis covering ten key areas of municipal public services. First, each smart city potential is assessed using around 60 indicators, the majority of which are drawn from federal statistical datasets. The actual level of implementation is determined through a comprehensive qualitative analysis of current strategies and projects.

In total, over 33,000 data points from exclusively publicly available sources are incorporated into the ranking each year. In 2026, 418 cities with more than 30,000 inhabitants were analysed. This makes the Haselhorst Smart City Ranking one of the most comprehensive ongoing analyses of urban digitalisation and transformation progress in Germany.

The data from the Haselhorst Smart City Ranking delivers value not only at local government level, but also at state and federal levels, along with the private sector. It enables well-founded analyses of overarching developments, as well as focused benchmarking of individual areas.

ABOUT H&Z AND HASELHORST ASSOCIATES

H&Z is a leading European management consulting firm with a clear focus on measurable impact. Together with Haselhorst Associates, H&Z combines comprehensive consulting expertise with many years of experience in the transformation and digitalisation of municipal stakeholders.

In August 2026, Haselhorst Associates GmbH was legally merged into H&Z Unternehmensberatung GmbH. The expertise and the Urban Transformation team from Haselhorst Associates will be continued and further expanded within the Cities & Utilities sector.