Apex has once again earned a place among America’s highly ranked small cities and claimed the title of the highest-ranked small city in the South. The North Carolina town received a total score of 70.24 in the study, which measured 1,318 U.S. cities with populations between 25,000 and 100,000 residents.
How Apex Stacked Up Against the Competition
The annual comparison ranked Lexington first, Brookfield second, and Carmel third, with Saratoga Springs, New York, rounding out the top five.
WalletHub built its rankings around 45 metrics spanning five broad categories: affordability, economic health, education and health, quality of life, and safety. Per the same account, the study considered only each city proper and left out surrounding metro areas, meaning Apex's score reflects the town itself rather than the wider Triangle region.
Categories Across the Study
The study assessed economic health, affordability, education and health, safety, and quality of life.
Apex slipped one spot compared with the previous year's study while keeping its status as the region's top performer. The metrics behind the overall scores included housing costs, school-system quality, restaurants per capita, and crime rates, per the study.
A Familiar Spot Near the Top
This isn't new territory for Apex. The town ranked No. 3 nationally in WalletHub's 2025 list, according to newsobserver.com, though that account put Apex's total score at 70.67 out of 100 — a figure that conflicts with the 70.24 score reported for the 2026 ranking, and the discrepancy between the two numbers has not been explained. A year before that, Apex landed in WalletHub's 99th percentile after posting the sixth-best score in the country, per a separate newsobserver.com report from 2024.
The 2026 field wasn't limited to Southern towns. Massachusetts placed three cities in the top 10, with Lexington at No. 1, Milton seventh, and Arlington eighth, wror.com reported. At the other end of the list, West Memphis, Arkansas ranked as the worst small city in the nation, scoring in the first percentile, according to patch.com.
For Apex, the ranking cements a multi-year run near the top of the national list, even with the modest one-spot slide from 2025. Whether the town can climb back toward the top three next year may hinge on whether its safety and quality-of-life scores can catch up to its consistently strong economic marks.
