Montreal has long been considered one of the best cities in the world to study in, but its status just took a hit.
According to the newly released QS Best Student Cities 2026 ranking, Montreal is now tied with Kyoto, Japan for 18th place globally — a noticeable dropoff from its placement in last year’s ranking. While Montreal remains the highest-ranked Canadian city on the list, it’s no longer in the global top 10, marking one of the sharper declines among major student destinations.
Toronto landed in 22nd place this year, and Vancouver did not crack the top 25.
The QS Best Student Cities ranking evaluates cities worldwide based on six main categories: University Rankings, Student Mix, Desirability, Employer Activity, Affordability, and Student View. To be eligible, a city must have a population over 250,000 and at least two universities featured in the latest QS World University Rankings. The latest iteration of that ranking saw local institutions, like McGill and Université de Montréal, land among the top 70.
As a “student city,” Montreal earned high marks for Student Mix and Student View but scored lower in Affordability and Employer Activity — areas where cities like Seoul, Tokyo, and Munich performed better.
Here are the top 25 cities on the 2026 list, along with their overall scores:
- Seoul, South Korea – Overall Score: 100
- Tokyo, Japan – Overall Score: 99.9
- London, UK – Overall Score: 97.1
- Munich, Germany – Overall Score: 96.3
- Melbourne, Australia – Overall Score: 95.7
- Sydney, Australia – Overall Score: 94.7
- Berlin, Germany – Overall Score: 93.3
- Paris, France – Overall Score: 93.3
- Zurich, Switzerland – Overall Score: 91.5
- Vienna, Austria – Overall Score: 90.8
- Singapore – Overall Score: 90.6
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Overall Score: 90.3
- Beijing, China – Overall Score: 89.7
- Taipei, Taiwan – Overall Score: 89.1
- Boston, USA – Overall Score: 88.5
- Edinburgh, UK – Overall Score: 88.5
- Hong Kong SAR – Overall Score: 88.3
- Kyoto, Japan – Overall Score: 87.8
- Montreal, Canada – Overall Score: 87.8
- Amsterdam, Netherlands – Overall Score: 87.4
- Lausanne, Switzerland – Overall Score: 87.1
- Toronto, Canada – Overall Score: 87.0
- New York, USA – Overall Score: 86.1
- Stockholm, Sweden – Overall Score: 85.2
- Auckland, New Zealand – Overall Score: 84.7
You can check out the full QS ranking here.
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