Finland took the top spot in this year’s World Happiness Report, while the United States dropped to its lowest ranking yet
Sarah Kuta – Daily CorrespondentMarch 25, 2025
Want to know the secret to happiness? Just ask the residents of Finland, which has been crowned the world’s happiest country for the eighth straight year.
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Finland once again took the top spot on the World Happiness Report, an annual ranking based on survey responses from the residents of more than 140 countries.
Now in its 13th year, the report is created in partnership between Gallup, the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Center, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Solutions Network and an independent editorial board.
It uses data from Gallup World Poll surveys, which ask individuals to rate their lives from zero to ten, with zero being the worst possible life and ten being the best. This scale is known as a “Cantril ladder.”
The report also uses six key variables to try to explain the global variations in happiness: gross domestic product (GDP), life expectancy, generosity, social support, freedom and corruption.
In Finland, people are “not happy, joyful, dancing in the streets type people,” but they are “very content with their lives,” says Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, an economist at the University of Oxford and the director of its Wellbeing Research Center, to Fortune’s Alexa Mikhail.
“They’re wealthy, they’re healthy, have social connections, social support [and] a connection with nature,” he adds.
All four of the top spots went to Nordic countries: Behind Finland, the report lists Denmark, Iceland and Sweden as the next happiest countries. A little lower on the list, Norway ranks seventh.
These Nordic nations “continue to benefit from universally available and high-quality health, education and social support systems,” says Ilana Ron-Levey, managing director at Gallup, to CNN’s Marnie Hunter. “Inequality of wellbeing is also low.”
Beyond institutional social support systems, experts say residents of these countries care about one another. Studies have found that individuals living in Nordic nations are more likely to return lost wallets to their owners.
“People trust each other in Finland and … on many levels in the society, we try to support each other,” Alexandra Peth, a resident of Helsinki, tells Kirsten Grieshaber and Kostya Manenkov of the Associated Press. “The system makes it kind of that you can trust it somehow.”
Meanwhile, the United States dropped to its lowest ranking yet in the annual report. This year, America came in 24th, down from its peak at 11th on the 2012 list.
One reason? Loneliness. In 2023, roughly a quarter of Americans reported eating alone during all meals on the previous day, which represents a 53 percent increase from 2003. Young people, in particular, are dining alone more often, according to the report.
Overall, Americans under the age of 30 are feeling “less supported by friends and family, less free to make life choices and less optimistic about their living standards,” Ron-Levey tells CNBC’s Celia Fernandez.
So-called “deaths of despair” (due to suicide or substance abuse) are also rising in America, though they’re declining in most other countries, the report finds.
Costa Rica and Mexico, meanwhile, both made it into the top ten for the first time. Residents of those countries have strong social bonds, which is also reflected in the high number of meals they eat together.
“It is not because of high GDP and the highest life expectancy,” De Neve tells Fortune. “They do spend time dining and lunching with others, having friends, and [their time is] not all cannibalized by social media, and so we picked this up in the data.”
Though each country is different, everyone can help improve the world’s collective happiness by putting on a “rosier set of glasses” when interacting with others, John Helliwell, a founding editor of the World Happiness Report, tells CNN.
“Negativity is poisonous to happiness,” he adds.
The happiest countries in the world
1. Finland
2. Denmark
3. Iceland
4. Sweden
5. Netherlands
6. Costa Rica
7. Norway
8. Israel
9. Luxembourg
10. Mexico
11. Australia
12. New Zealand
13. Switzerland
14. Belgium
15. Ireland
16. Lithuania
17. Austria
18. Canada
19. Slovenia
20. Czech Republic
