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NEWS - March 31, 2026

Amsterdam ranks 18th in the Global Gay Nightlife Index 2026

Concentration of gaybars in Reguliersdwarsstraat

The question is frequently asked whether Amsterdam is still a Gay Capital. An answer comes from the recently published Global Gay Nightlife Index 2026, in which Amsterdam ranks 18th among cities with the best gay nightlife.

The Global Gay Nightlife Index 2026 recently appeared on the German erotica website Erobella. This index ranks 30 cities from all over the world, with as a special feature that the nightlife venues were related to the population of the respective city.

This was done based on the idea that going out is more attractive if the various venues are located close together. They can then be visited easily and spontaneously, without the need for extensive logistical planning. According to Erobella, this makes the gay scene lively and visible.

The Global Gay Nightlife Index 2026 is therefore not about the highest numbers of gay places, but also about the density and walkability of the scene. In addition to the ratio to population size, points could be scored in four categories: 1. Gay bars, 2. Gay clubs & Parties, 3. Gay saunas, and 4. Cruising & Fetish spaces.

The key results

The city that scored the highest is San Francisco with 81 out of 100 points. Somewhat surprisingly, the English seaside resort of Brighton comes in second place (69 points) and the Portuguese capital Lisbon in third place (56 points). Next come two cities that are more obvious choices, namely Barcelona (43 points) and Miami (39 points).

Amsterdam ranks 18th with 16 points. Of these, 3 points are for gay bars, only 1 point for gay clubs & parties, 3 points for gay saunas, and 9 points for cruising & fetish spaces. The ever-popular Berlin came in just slightly higher than Amsterdam with 17 points. Cologne scored considerably higher, securing the 8th place with 34 points.

Equally surprising is that some of the largest cities ended up at the very bottom of the Global Gay Nightlife Index: Los Angeles with only 9 points in 26th place, immediately followed by New York City in 27th place and London with a meager 4 points in 29th place. The British city of Birmingham is at the bottom of the ranking.

You can find the full list at The Global Gay Nightlife Index 2026

The Amsterdam streets where concentrations
of gay places were traditionally located.

The position of Amsterdam

It is difficult to say whether the 18th place in the Global Gay Nightlife Index 2026 does justice to what the Amsterdam gay scene has to offer. After all, it is not clear exactly how the points for the four different categories were awarded. Apart from that, going out is something that is strongly colored by personal taste and experience and can therefore never be judged entirely objectively.

Nevertheless, the Global Gay Nightlife Index offers interesting added value by not only looking at the number of gay venues, but also including density and walkability in the assessment. This is something where the relatively small-scale city of Amsterdam scores highly compared to larger cities, where gay venues are sometimes widely scattered and difficult to reach on foot.

Changes in Amsterdam

However, in terms of walkability, the situation in Amsterdam has also gradually deteriorated. Around 2010, the situation still existed where gay places were concentrated in a number of streets, each with its own character (see the map above). On average, each street had about 4 bars close together, and you could reach the next gay street within a walk of 5 to a maximum of 20 minutes.

Although the number of gay and lesbian places in Amsterdam has remained stable from 2015 to 2025, the dispersion has changed. For instance, the number of venues in Warmoesstraat and at Zeedijk has halved, while the gay bars along Amstel and in Halvemaansteeg have disappeared completely. Only in Reguliersdwarsstraat the number of gay places increased, so now this street has the city's largest concentration.

Accessibility to Amsterdam's gay nightlife venues declined in other ways as well. First, making the city center car-free made it more difficult for elderly and drag queens in particular to reach the gay places by taxi. Subsequently, taxis and public transport themselves were perceived as increasingly unsafe, and by now, gentrification makes it extremely difficult to find a home in the city at all.

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