The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, or IIHS, is an independent agency that puts new cars through a barrage of tests to evaluate their safety. The IIHS has done this sort of testing for decades, and each year it releases a list of the top performing vehicles, called its Top Safety Picks. Over the years, new and different tests have been added that continuously make earning Top Safety Pick tougher. The institute even added a new above-the-top rating back called Top Safety Pick+ to push things forward, and 2026 is no different — the requirements are tougher than ever.
Despite tougher requirements, 15 more cars have already qualified for the awards than this time last year, with a total of 63 winners. This year, the IIHS required a good rating in its updated moderate overlap crash test for cars to earn either a Top Safety Pick award or a tougher Top Safety Pick+ award, and a good-or-acceptable rating in the new more thorough vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention evaluation was required to earn a Top Safety Pick+.
If safety is toward the top of your new car priority list, there are several vehicles from most categories on this list that offer a good place to start, some with base prices starting as low as $23,535.
2026 IIHS Top Safety Pick+ award winners
This year, what sets Top Safety Pick+ award winners apart from Top Safety Pick award winners is their superior back seat occupant safety, as well as their superior automated crash avoidance systems. The IIHS introduced its new vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention test to the award criteria this year, and Top Safety Pick+ award winners must achieve a score of either acceptable or good in order to qualify.
The test involves sending each car toward three different stationary vehicle types at 31 mph, 37 mph, and 43 mph. The three different vehicles that each system must avoid are a stopped semi-truck trailer, as well as a stationary passenger car and a stationary motorcycle, both of which are tested with the respective vehicle stopped in the center of the lane and offset to the right or left. A technician drives the test vehicle toward the stationary targets without touching the brake pedal, and the vehicle must issue timely warnings in all scenarios and substantially slow or entirely avoid a collision in order to earn a good rating. These are all the models that earn a Top Safety Pick+ award so far in 2026.
Small Cars
Kia K4
Mazda 3 hatchback
Mazda 3 sedan
Nissan Sentra
Midsize Cars
Hyundai Sonata
Toyota Camry
Audi A5
Large Cars
2027
Context:
63 vehicles earned IIHS Top Safety Pick awards despite stricter 2026 testing requirements.
Context:
Tougher safety standards help consumers identify the most crash-worthy vehicles available.
Context:
IIHS testing now includes 31-43 mph collision scenarios with trucks, cars, and motorcycles.