About the paper
The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer is based on Edelman’s 26th annual online survey, fielded from 25 October to 16 November 2025 across 28 countries, with 33,938 respondents and roughly 1,200–1,501 respondents per country; the report states the data are representative of the general population by age, gender and region within each market.
The report also uses partial-sample questions for some topics, including future outlook, media exposure, trust brokering and foreign-company trust, so some findings rest on smaller subsamples with larger margins of error.
Methodology is generally clear, though several analyses rely on derived scales or partial samples explained in the technical appendix.
Length: 77 pages
More information / download:
https://www.edelman.com/trust/2026/trust-barometer
Core Insights
1. What is the report’s central argument about the state of trust in 2026?
The core argument is that trust has not simply weakened in a uniform way; it has become more inward-looking. Edelman frames this as a progression from polarization to grievance and then to insularity, which it defines as a reluctance to trust anyone who is different from you. The report’s main claim is that economic displacement, cost-of-living pressures, misinformation, discrimination, geopolitical tension and the pandemic have pushed many people towards safety, familiarity and sameness rather than openness.
That argument is supported by one of the report’s most important headline findings: globally, 7 in 10 respondents are classified as having an “insular trust mindset”, meaning they are either hesitant or unwilling to trust someone who differs from them in values, facts, problem-solving approaches, or culture/background. The segmentation is not casual wording; it is built from a specific measurement model in the appendix, where respondents are grouped as unwilling, hesitant or open based on their average willingness to trust people unlike themselves.
The report therefore presents 2026 not as a simple trust crisis, but as a trust reorientation. Trust is moving away from broad, shared institutions and towards one’s own immediate circle, local ties and familiar actors. That is why the title, Trust Amid Insularity, matters: trust still exists, but it is increasingly conditional, local and bounded.
2. What evidence does the report provide that people are turning inward rather than outward?
The strongest evidence is the combination of pessimism, fear and narrowing openness. Globally, only 32% say the next generation in their country will be better off than today, down 4 points year on year. That is a strikingly low level of forward optimism for a study centred on public trust, because it suggests that many respondents do not see broad-based future progress as plausible.
The report also shows elevated economic anxiety. Among employees, worry about losing one’s job because of a looming recession and concern about international trade and tariff conflicts hurting one’s employer have both reached all-time highs in the global trend data presented. Alongside that, fear that foreign countries are deliberately contaminating domestic media with falsehoods has risen sharply and reached an all-time high in many countries.
A further sign of retreat is informational narrowing. Only 39% say they get information at least weekly from sources with a different political leaning than their own, a 6-point drop from 2025, with statistically significant declines in 20 of 28 countries. This matters because the report links insularity not just to emotion, but to reduced exposure to difference itself.
Finally, the report shows that recent societal events have increased trust in people close at hand while reducing trust in shared institutions. Among those who say major events affected their trust, respondents report net gains in trust for neighbours, family and friends, coworkers and CEOs, but net losses for national government leaders, major news organisations and foreign business leaders. In other words, “we” gives way to “me” and “my circle”.
3. How uneven is trust across countries, classes and institutions?
The report makes clear that trust is highly uneven geographically. The global Trust Index rises slightly from 56 to 57, but this masks a sharp divide between developing and developed countries: developing countries average 66, while developed countries average 49. China, the UAE, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia sit near the top of the ranking, while Japan, France, the UK and Germany are much lower. So the story is not one of universal decline, but of divergence.
There is also a pronounced income divide. On the long trend shown in the report, the gap in the Trust Index between high-income and low-income groups has widened from 6 points in 2012 to 15 points in 2026 in the 21-market tracking average. In the current 28-market snapshot, high-income respondents score 65 on trust versus 50 for low-income respondents. The report explicitly describes these as “different trust realities”.
At the institutional level, employers and business remain the most trusted institutions globally. The report shows trust at 78% for “my employer” among employees and 64% for business overall, compared with 58% for NGOs, 54% for media and 53% for government. That hierarchy matters because it underpins Edelman’s later argument that employers and business are best placed to act as trust brokers.
The report also argues that insularity and grievance are closely linked. Among people with an insular mindset, a moderate or high sense of grievance is substantially more common than among those with an open mindset. That gives the report a broader sociological claim: distrust is not just about institutions failing in abstraction, but about groups feeling excluded, harmed or left behind.
4. What does the report say are the consequences of insularity for society, work and business?
One of the report’s most important claims is that insularity is not just an attitudinal problem; it has concrete economic and organisational costs. On page 18, sizeable minorities say they would rather switch departments than report to a manager with different values, would put less effort into helping a project leader with different political beliefs succeed, or would support reducing foreign companies in their country even if it led to higher prices. This is Edelman’s case that insularity can damage productivity, increase workplace conflict and reinforce economic nationalism.
The report also shows that people with insular mindsets trust their own circle but distrust institutions led by people unlike them. Among this group, neighbours and CEOs inside their own frame score relatively well, while journalists and government leaders score much lower. Separate analysis shows large trust gaps between open-minded and insular respondents when institutions are imagined as being led by people who differ from them in values, facts, approaches or background.
For multinational business, the consequence is geopolitical insularity. Respondents in several countries trust companies headquartered in their own country markedly more than foreign-headquartered firms. The report’s implication is that global scale alone no longer guarantees legitimacy; local embeddedness matters more. That is why it argues multinationals may need a more “polynational” model rooted in long-term local relationships.
The broader consequence is that difference itself becomes a barrier to cooperation. The report warns that if perfect alignment becomes a prerequisite for trust, progress stalls: innovation becomes harder, leadership weakens and social divides deepen. In that sense, the report is not only describing a mood, but warning of a drag on collective problem-solving.
5. What solution does the report propose, and who does it believe should lead it?
Edelman’s answer is “trust brokering”. The report defines this as a set of practices and behaviours that counter insularity by facilitating trust across difference. Crucially, it says trust brokering is not about changing people’s identities or forcing consensus. Instead, it is about surfacing common interests, listening without judgement and translating the needs and realities of one group to another.
The report finds that this approach resonates more than simple side-taking. When asked what would most increase trust in a business responding to a highly divisive social issue, the top answer is encouraging people to cooperate on solutions without taking a side, ahead of supporting a position consistent with the company’s values or supporting the respondent’s own position. That is a revealing finding: respondents appear to prefer a convening role over performative alignment.
It also argues that long-term local relationships matter more than one-off gestures. If a foreign company from a distrusted country wanted to operate in a local community, respondents were most likely to say it could earn trust by investing in long-term community projects and hiring local people, rather than merely helping during crises or donating to social organisations. The report’s logic is that trust is built through durable presence, not episodic signalling.
As for who should lead, the report gives the strongest practical role to employers. It says all major institutions are seen as having an obligation to bridge divides, but employers have the smallest gap between perceived obligation and current performance. It also finds high support for employer actions such as promoting a shared identity, building teams that require people with different values to work together, and providing training for constructive dialogue. That is why the report’s concluding argument is so employer-centric: business, and especially employers, are portrayed as the institutions best positioned to scale trust brokering in practice.