Top 10 Tallest Buildings in the World (2026)

### How tall is the Burj Khalifa? The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is listed at 828 meters and is the tallest building on this list.

### Where are most of the world's tallest buildings? Six of the ten are in China (Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Tianjin ×2, and Beijing). The remaining four are in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and the United States.

### How are these heights measured? The heights shown are structural heights, in meters, as recorded in the Wikidata catalog used to build the list. They are not roof heights or antenna-tip heights.

### Do the buildings all have a completion year? Yes. Each entry includes a completion year ranging from 2012 (Makkah Royal Clock Tower) to 2017 for the most recent entries on this list.

### Is the list ordered only by height? Yes. Items appear from tallest (828 m) to shortest on the list (530 m). The Tianjin CTF Finance Centre and the Tianjin Chow Tai Fook Binhai Center share 530 m and appear in catalog order.

### What is the tallest building in the world in 2026? The Burj Khalifa in Dubai remains the tallest completed building in the world in 2026, at 828 meters (2,717 feet).

### How tall is the Burj Khalifa compared to the Shanghai Tower? The Burj Khalifa (828 m) is roughly 196 meters taller than the Shanghai Tower (632 m), the second-tallest completed building.

### Is Merdeka 118 taller than the Burj Khalifa? No. Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur stands at 678.9 m, making it the second-tallest completed building globally but still about 149 m shorter than the Burj Khalifa.

### What is taller: a building or a tower? In this list, "building" refers to habitable, fully completed structures (residential, office, or mixed-use). Telecommunications and observation-only structures are excluded, which is why every entry on this list is a completed skyscraper rather than a broadcast mast.

### Which country has the most supertall buildings on this list? China has the most entries on this top 10 list, with six buildings: Shanghai Tower, Ping An Finance Centre, Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre, Tianjin CTF Finance Centre, CITIC Tower, and Tianjin Chow Tai Fook Binhai Center.

What is the tallest building in the world in 2026? The Burj Khalifa in Dubai remains the tallest completed building in the world, reaching 828 meters.

How tall does a building have to be to be called a megatall? A megatall skyscraper is generally defined as a building exceeding 600 meters in height.

What is the difference between architectural height and structural height? Architectural height measures to the structural top, while structural height includes antennas and spires but excludes them in some ranking systems.

Which country has the most supertall buildings? China currently has the largest number of completed supertall buildings, with several entries on this list located in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, and Tianjin.

Building height is measured from ground level to the architectural top, including spires but excluding antennas. This metric ensures consistent comparison across structures.

Which building has been the tallest the longest?

The Burj Khalifa has held the title of world's tallest building since its completion in 2010, with no challenger expected to surpass its 828-meter height in the near future.

Why do some buildings share the same height?

Buildings like the Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre and Tianjin CTF Finance Centre are both listed at 530 meters due to matching architectural heights (including spires), though their rooftop heights may differ slightly.

How is 'tallest building' measured?

Measurements include structural height (top of architectural elements), tip height (highest point including spires/antennas), and floor-to-roof height. Most rankings use architectural height as the standard.

Is this list up to date for 2026?

This list reflects verified data as of April 2026, cross-referenced against Wikidata's crowdsourced records.

Six of the ten buildings here are in mainland China — two of them in Tianjin alone — which reflects a construction wave concentrated almost entirely in the 2010s, as rapid urbanization and a period of encouraged prestige building drove a supertall boom across Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Tianjin, and Beijing. That era effectively ended in 2021, when Chinese authorities introduced guidance discouraging new buildings above 500 meters and restricting buildings above 250 meters outside a small number of major cities, citing safety and resource-use concerns. That policy shift is a large part of why this list's composition has been unusually stable since — the pipeline of new Chinese supertalls that produced most of these entries has slowed sharply.

Past a certain height, a single elevator shaft running from the ground to the top floor stops being practical — it takes up too much floor space and can't move enough people fast enough. That's why supertalls like the Burj Khalifa and Shanghai Tower use multi-stage systems: 'sky lobbies' partway up the building where you transfer between elevator banks, and double-deck cars that load two floors of passengers at once. It's an unglamorous engineering constraint, but it shapes the whole building — how deep the floor plates need to be, where mechanical and refuge floors go, and how many of the tower's lower floors get eaten up by elevator infrastructure before you reach usable office or hotel space.