Over 90% of Irish towns have been deemed clean, according to the latest IBAL survey.
This is compared with just 28% of city areas, the Irish Business Against Litter data shows.
Maynooth won out ahead of Mallow, Kilkenny, Clonmel and Ennis.
Dundalk - marked as ‘seriously littered’ at the very foot of the table - and ‘moderately littered’ Tralee were the sole towns to miss out on clean status.
Waterford and Galway were again Ireland's only clean cities.
Cork city centre, Mahon, Limerick city and Galvone have all made some progress, as has Ballymun - but Dublin city centre has deteriorated from ‘moderately littered’ to ‘littered’.
Source: IBALThe survey also shows that PPE litter has not disappeared entirely, with masks found in 7% of sites.
There was a slight fall in the prevalence of alcohol cans and bottles, but coffee cups were present in 20% of sites.
There was also an increase in cigarette butts.
Vaping devices were included as a litter type for the first time and were present in 6% of sites.
IBAL spokesman Conor Horgan told Newstalk Breakfast the gateways to our towns need more attention.
"Litter levels were pretty much unchanged on 12 months ago," he said.
"Of the 30-plus towns that we surveyed, only Tralee and Dundalk failed to make the mark of cleanliness.
"It was a different case, as ever, when we came to our city areas: only 28% of those surveyed were clean.
"Unfortunately, Dublin city centre had deteriorated from moderately littered to littered.
"Cork north side also fell to littered - it's a tale of two halves as ever.
"As we welcome our peak tourist numbers to our country, they're going to be greeted with clean towns but the gateways to those towns - our cities - our falling short of the mark," he added.
