Our ranking of the 50 most water-resistant phones on sale in the UK, ordered by the manufacturer's own IP rating rather than by opinion. The second digit of the IP code sets the order: IP69 and IP69K phones come first, then IP68, then IP67. Within each of those bands phones are sorted by overall spec score, so the best-specified handset at a given rating rises to the top of its group. Contract, upgrade and SIM-free prices underneath update daily.
The top of the list is dominated by phones carrying a water digit of 9 - an IP69 or IP69K rating that covers high-pressure, high-temperature jets on top of deep immersion. Oppo, Honor and Xiaomi flagships have led that shift, and the certification has spread through the premium market fast enough that the entire top 15 sits in that band. It runs a long way past 15, too: the first IP68 handset only appears once the water-digit-9 phones have run out. Because the table is rebuilt nightly as scores, stock and pricing move, treat it as the answer rather than any fixed list.
Two things are worth saying before you scroll. We do not drop phones in a water tank - this ranking is computed from the IP codes held in our spec database, which are the manufacturer's certified figures and the only water numbers on a phone that have been tested to a published standard. And no IP rating makes a phone waterproof the way a diving watch is waterproof: the tests use fresh water, the seals degrade as a phone ages, and almost every manufacturer warranty sold in the UK excludes liquid damage whatever the box says.
What does IP68 actually mean, and how do we rank on it?
IP stands for Ingress Protection, and the two digits after it are two separate ratings that get quoted as one number. The first digit is protection against solids and dust, scored 0 to 6. The second is protection against water, scored 0 to 9. An X in either position means that property was not certified, so IPX8 is a phone that has passed a water test but has no published dust rating. It is not a weaker water rating than IP68.
The water digit is what this page ranks on, and only three of its values qualify for this list: 7, 8 and 9. Anything lower describes splash or jet resistance rather than immersion, and plenty of phones on sale sit there - they are filtered out before the ranking starts. IP67 certifies immersion in one metre of fresh water for 30 minutes. IP68 certifies immersion beyond one metre, with the depth and the duration specified by the manufacturer rather than fixed by the standard - which is why IP68 is not a single promise, and why Apple quotes different depths for different iPhone models. IP69 and IP69K add resistance to high-pressure, high-temperature water jets, a test that came from industrial washdown equipment and has only recently started appearing on consumer phones.
The ordering follows directly from that. A water digit of 9 gets a base of 75 points, an 8 gets 50, a 7 gets 25, and the phone's overall spec score contributes at most 25 on top. Because the spacing between tiers is 25 and the spec bonus caps at 25, a phone can never be pushed above one with a better water rating. At most it can draw level, and in practice the bands do not currently touch, because no phone in our catalogue scores high enough on specification to close a 25-point gap. Spec score only breaks ties inside a rating. That is deliberate: the page is called waterproof, so water resistance decides the order and everything else is a tiebreak.
This is why the phones you might expect to see at number one are not there. The Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max and the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra are both IP68. They score very highly on specification and both sit near the top of our camera and display rankings, but on water resistance they sit a full tier below the IP69 group, so they appear underneath phones with lower spec scores. If what you actually want is the strongest phone overall rather than the best-sealed one, our performance and camera rankings are the pages to use instead.
244 phones in our database carry an immersion rating, and the 215 of those with live deals qualify for this list. IP66 and below are excluded outright. An IP66 phone is rated against powerful water jets, not against being submerged, so it will shrug off rain, a splash and a kitchen tap, but the standard makes no claim about what happens when it goes under. A page called waterproof should not list a phone you cannot put in water, so those models are filtered out rather than ranked low. Where a phone carries more than one IP token, and IP68/IP69K is a common pairing, we score it on the highest water digit found.
The first digit still tells you something useful even though it does not affect the order here. A 6 means dust-tight. A 5 means dust-protected: limited ingress is permitted as long as it does not interfere with operation. That difference shows up on folding phones, which are harder to seal than a solid frame. The Honor Magic V5 is rated IP58/IP59, giving it the same top-tier water certification as the phones above it but a lower dust rating, and the Motorola Razr Fold is quoted as IPX9 with no dust figure published at all.
What the rating does not cover matters as much as what it does. IP tests use clean, still fresh water at room temperature. Sea water, chlorinated pool water, soapy water and hot water all fall outside the test, and salt and chlorine in particular attack the adhesives and gaskets doing the sealing. Moving water also applies more pressure than still water at the same depth, so a rated depth does not translate into swimming lengths or riding a jet ski. Steam from a hot shower is a common cause of failure on phones that are technically rated for immersion.
Ratings describe a new phone, too. Adhesive and rubber seals harden and shrink with heat, age and flexing, and every drop is a chance for the seal to shift even when nothing visible breaks. Repairs are the biggest single factor: a screen or battery replacement breaks the original seal, and only a properly resealed repair gets anywhere near restoring the rating. Add the warranty exclusion on top and the sensible reading of an IP figure is insurance against an accident, not permission to go swimming. Prices for every phone in the list are above: each card carries the current best contract, upgrade and SIM-free figure and links through to that handset's full deal list.