Finland and several other Nordic countries have been – once again – assessed as leading the world in happiness, according to an annual report released Thursday that analyzed the views of respondents’ quality of life in more than 140 countries and territories over the last three years.
The World Happiness Report, produced by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford in a partnership that includes Gallup, based its rankings on answers from more than 100,000 people to a single life-evaluation question included in the Gallup World Poll: “Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”
Analysts found a strong link between well-being across the globe and sharing meals with others – a practice to which they recommend a return.
“In this era of social isolation and political polarisation we need to find ways to bring people around the table again – doing so is critical for our individual and collective wellbeing,” Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, director of the Wellbeing Research Centre, an economics professor at Oxford and an editor of the report, said in a statement.
For the 2025 report, the data is based on combined responses from 2022 to 2024. And for the eighth straight year, Finland was ranked No. 1, with its respondents having an average score of about 7.7 out of 10 tied to the life-evaluation question. The consistently happy nation also ranked high in categories such as inequality, social support, freedom and perceptions of corruption.
All other Nordic countries – Denmark (No. 2), Iceland (No. 3), Sweden (No. 4) and Norway (No. 7) – also ranked in the top 10. Other nations in the top 10 include Costa Rica (No. 6) and Mexico (No. 10), both first-timers for 2025.
The 10 Happiest Countries in the World:
Absent from that top group is the United States, which fell to its lowest ranking (No. 24, one spot below the United Kingdom and two below Germany) since the World Happiness Report’s launch 13 years ago. Perhaps relatedly, the number of people dining alone in the U.S. has spiked by 53% over the past two decades, according to the authors. The best performance by the U.S. came in 2012, when it landed at No. 11.
There is some overlap between the report’s findings and those in the U.S. News Best Countries analysis, which ranks nations based on an international perceptions survey that reached nearly 17,000 people in 2024. The project’s quality of life subranking, which assesses how well citizens think their countries treat them across many phases of life, has Denmark at No. 1, while Finland, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands also were in the top 10 last year. The U.S. was placed at No. 22.
Afghanistan had, by a wide margin, the lowest average score among all countries and territories after several years of rule under the Taliban. Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Malawi and Zimbabwe – all countries with residents often subjected to violence – rounded out the bottom five of the World Happiness Report’s list.
Some countries in the midst of conflicts fared a bit better. Israel ranked No. 8 overall even after more than a year of war in Gaza against Hamas, which attacked Israelis and took hundreds of hostages on Oct. 7, 2023. But a Palestinian state – a non-member observer in the United Nations that is increasingly being recognized as sovereign – landed at No. 108 in the report. More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Israel-Hamas war began.
Ukraine, having been at war for more than three years following Russia’s invasion, ranked No. 111. Russia, on the other hand, was placed nearly 50 spots higher (No. 66).
More broadly, like group meals, researchers said that believing others are willing to return your wallet if it gets lost is another strong indicator of population well-being.
“The wallet dropping experiments confirm the reality of these perceptions, even if they are everywhere too pessimistic,” John F. Helliwell, an economist at the University of British Columbia and founding editor of the World Happiness Report, added in a statement.
Read more Explainer: 10 Surprising Facts About the History and Impact of Earth Day
