7 Of The Fastest Roller Coasters In The World, Ranked By Top Speed

There are two kinds of people who like to go to amusement and theme parks. There are those who like to soak up the atmosphere, sample the food, have a drink, and go on a couple of rides. Then there are the adrenaline junkies looking for the most outrageous thrill they can find. For them, there's nothing more delectable than a roller coaster. They're looking for the biggest, tallest, and — most importantly — fastest coasters to feel as close to pure danger as they possibly can, while still being safe.

You're not going to find this kind of roller coaster at places like Disney World or Universal Studios. Sure, they have some of the most high-tech roller coasters ever built, but they're still catering to a family audience. Their most intense rides can't be the world's most intense. 

But plenty of other amusement parks around the world have made it their mission to develop the fastest coaster of them all. And 2025 looks to be a year when that record is broken once again with the impending opening of the Falcon's Flight roller coaster at Six Flags Qiddiya in Saudi Arabia, which purports to have a top speed of 155 mph. 

There's no definitive opening date for Falcon's Flight, so it can't claim the top spot yet. Until it opens, here are the seven fastest roller coasters they have ever been built and are still standing, most of which you can still ride and have your face blown off.

In seventh place, we have a tie between two roller coasters with the same top speed. The first of them to open is the Steel Dragon 2000, which debuted at Japan's Nagashima Spa Land amusement park in the year 2000, inspiring its name. It's the world's longest roller coaster at 8,133 feet, though it's soon to be supplanted by the Falcon's Flight coaster. And it was the second fastest in the world when it opened. It can reach a top speed of 95 mph, which does make it the fastest coaster in Japan.

That 95 mph top speed is shared with the Fury 325, a coaster at the Carowinds amusement park in Charlotte, North Carolina. This is a much newer coaster than the Steel Dragon 2000, opening in 2015. While not as long as the Japanese coaster at 6,602 feet — though that does place it in the current top six all time — Fury 325 is taller by about seven feet, with its 325-foot height giving it its name.

Another thing binds these two roller coasters together: They both use a traditional lift hill track system instead of the magnetic launch technology most other high-speed coasters use. In terms of lift hill coasters, the Steel Dragon 2000 and Fury 325 coasters are the fastest in the world.

This particular roller coaster has an unusual story to it. Nürburgring in Nürburg, Germany is primarily a racetrack where the fastest electric cars try to push the boundaries of speed, but it also features many other amusements themed to Formula 1, including a cinema and a car exhibition. One of these attractions is a roller coaster originally set to open in 2009, but delayed after explosions occurred during testing, injuring engineers and destroying property. This occurred during testing of the launch system, which was meant to propel the coaster's car 135 mph to make it the world's fastest. Because of the explosions, that number was not ultimately going to be reached.

It would take another four years for Ring Racer to finally open on Halloween 2013. By this point, the hope was that the launch speed was going to be around 105 mph, but in reality, it was more like 99 mph – still plenty fast enough to make this list. What the folks at Nürburgring quickly realized was that the costs of running the Ring Racer were incredibly high, and the fact that it was only open for four hours a day did not help matters. After less than a week of operation, the Ring Racer coaster made its last run in early November, 2013. You can still go to Nürburgring and see the coaster, which still stands. You just won't be able to ride it.

For most of the roller coasters on this list, theming is not particularly important. Their draw is speed, and if there's theming, it's to emphasize that idea, like designing it after a race car. The exception to this rule is the Superman: Escape from Krypton roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California. Obviously, this pays homage to the iconic DC Comics superhero, as many attractions do across various Six Flags parks. Granted, the level of theming is less intricate than you'd find at Disney World, but people will say they "want to ride Superman" rather than "ride the roller coaster."

Its theming is not the only thing that makes it stand out. There's also its length, just 1,315 feet. The reason it's so short is that the ride is very simple. You're launched at 100 mph and climb 415 feet into the air, followed by falling back down those 415 feet and returning to the spot you started from. When it opened in 1997, it was tied for theworld's fastest roller coaster with the now-demolished Tower of Terror II coaster at Dreamworld in Australia. Originally, the coaster was just called Superman: The Escape, but the subtitle was changed to Escape from Krypton in 2011. Outside of occasional refurbishments, this 100 mph thrill can still be enjoyed by anyone at least 48 inches tall.

Did you know there was a Ferrari theme park? Well, there are actually two. The one we're discussing here is Ferrari Land, part of the PortAventura World resort in Catalonia, Spain. It features the world's second-fastest roller coaster that's currently open, themed to the Italian automaker — the Red Force roller coaster, which debuted on April 7, 2017 when the amusement park opened. This is another fairly short coaster with a track length of just 2,887 feet, but it's the tallest and fastest roller coaster in Europe.

The concept of Red Force is similar to Superman: Escape from Krypton and other coasters on this list where the goal is to shoot the train car high into the air as fast as it possibly can. In this case, you reach a maximum height of 367 feet after a fast launch where you reach a maximum speed of 112 mph in just five seconds. The second-fastest European coaster still in operation is the Hyperion at Energylandia in Zator, Poland, and that one only manages to get to just over 88 mph. That means Red Force stands head and shoulders above the continental competition. Although the ride may only last around 30 seconds, you're getting some serious speed in that short amount of time.

The next roller coaster on the list technically opened in 2024, but that's only after it shut down and received an overhaul with a new name. This coaster actually goes back to 2003 when it was called the Top Thrill Dragster. It's at the famed amusement park Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, and upon its debut, it became the fastest, tallest roller coaster on the planet, a record it would hold for two years. 

For its maximum height – a stunning 420 feet – it became the first strata coaster ever built (strata coasters have a drop of 400 to 499 feet). For its speed, highlighting its motorsports theming, the Top Thrill Dragster could reach a maximum speed of 120 mph. While that doesn't make it the fastest roller coaster today, it's still the fastest triple launch coaster. 

The coaster closed in 2021 after a woman waiting in line was hit in the head by a large bracket that came off of one of its cars. She suffered a traumatic brain injury, and her family sued Cedar Point, eventually settling out of court.

The ride was overhauled and reopened in the spring of 2024 under the new name Top Thrill 2, retaining the same impressive speed and height. But Cedar Point closed the ride again about a week later to make mechanical modifications to its vehicles. It has remained closed, but the plan is for it to reopen in the summer of 2025.

Although this roller coaster started being demolished in early 2025 after its permanent closure in November 2024, it's important to include the Kingda Ka coaster on this list. It opened in 2005 at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, and it's the coaster that supplanted the Top Thrill Dragster as the fastest and tallest in the world. It has been beaten since for speed, but it still holds the record as the tallest ever built. Its maximum height of 456 feet will only be beaten by the eventual opening of the Falcon's Flight coaster in Saudi Arabia. Holding a record for 20 years is impressive, considering coaster engineers are constantly trying top themselves.

Kingda Ka only held its speed record for about 5½ years. For its maximum speed, it would get up to 128 mph, just narrowly edging out the Top Thrill Dragster. Those coasters' designs were similar, and both were built by Intamin Amusement Rides, which designed every coaster on this list except Steel Dragon 2000, Fury 325, and Ring Racer. (Zamperla redesigned Intamin's Top Thrill Dragster into Top Thrill 2.)

Ultimately, Six Flags Great Adventure felt it could close and demolish Kingda Ka because, according to president Brian Bacica, the park plans "an all-new, multi-record-breaking launch coaster" to open in 2026. What records it intends to break are unclear, but if it can top what Kingda Ka accomplished, that will be one impressive roller coaster.

Before Falcon's Flight swoops in later in 2025 to claim the title, the fastest roller coaster in the world is Formula Rossa. This coaster, which debuted in 2010, can be found at Ferrari World Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (not to be confused with Ferrari Land in Spain). Its jump in speed from the second-place finisher on this list is impressive. For its initial launch, it is able to go from 0 to 62 mph) in less than two seconds, and in less than five seconds, it can reach its top speed, a whopping 149.1 mph, besting Kingda Ka's top speed by over 20 mph.

Speed is not all the Formula Rossa roller coaster is concerned with. It's 6,804-foot length makes it the second longest roller coaster track in the world behind the Steel Dragon 2000, both of which will be eclipsed by Falcon's Flight's expected 14,000 feet. However, its maximum height of 170 feet is not extraordinary for a coaster like this. For Ferrari-themed coasters, Formula Rossa has the distance, and Red Force has the height. 

Falcon's Flight will only best Formula Rossa by about 6 mph to become the fastest roller coaster in the world. That just goes to show you what an enormous leap forward in design this coaster was, considering it is 15 years old.