The 2026 Mazda CX-5 has officially secured the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s Top Safety Pick+ rating, one of the most important safety honors in the car industry. With this result, the CX-5 becomes the ninth 2026 Mazda model to earn the institute’s highest award, giving Mazda one of the strongest safety records among brands in the U.S. market this year.
Other Mazda models that received the same Top Safety Pick+ recognition include the Mazda3 sedan, Mazda3 hatchback, CX-30, CX-50 and CX-50 Hybrid, CX-70, CX-70 PHEV, CX-90, and CX-90 PHEV.
Mazda says this achievement reflects its ongoing focus on protecting occupants, helping drivers avoid crashes, and moving toward its long-term target of zero fatalities in Mazda vehicles by 2040. The company points to a blend of careful engineering, driver-focused design, and modern safety technologies as key reasons behind the CX-5’s strong performance.
For 2026, the IIHS made its Top Safety Pick+ requirements tougher, with more attention placed on rear-seat passenger protection and crash-prevention systems. To qualify, a vehicle must receive a good rating in the small overlap front, updated moderate overlap front, and side-impact crash tests. It also needs good or acceptable headlights, strong pedestrian crash-prevention performance, and solid vehicle-to-vehicle front crash-prevention results. All required systems must be standard on every trim.
The updated moderate overlap front test is one of the most demanding parts of the evaluation. In this crash, the vehicle hits a fixed barrier at 40 mph, with only 40 percent of its front end making contact on the driver’s side. This uneven impact forces the body structure to manage crash energy in a much harder way, while also putting greater pressure on the cabin and rear-seat area. Unlike the older version, which mainly measured driver protection, the updated test also looks at injury risk for a smaller rear-seat dummy representing a 12-year-old child.
That change is important because rear passengers have not always received the same level of advanced protection as those sitting up front. By raising the bar, the IIHS is pushing automakers to improve rear-seat safety through better seatbelt pretensioners, load limiters, and airbag systems.
Mazda’s latest award also tells a bigger story about the brand. The 2026 model year marks the third year in a row that Mazda has led the industry in IIHS Top Safety Pick+ results, from 2024 through 2026. The CX-5’s award also brings Mazda to 100 IIHS Top Safety Pick honors overall, including 74 Top Safety Pick+ awards.
For a company long known for driving pleasure and its famous “Zoom-Zoom” character, Mazda is now proving that safety can be just as central to its identity. The 2026 CX-5 shows that the brand is not only building cars that feel good to drive, but also vehicles designed to protect families with some of the highest crash-safety standards in the industry.
