The World Happiness Report 2025 has named Finland the happiest country in the world for the eighth consecutive year, while the United States and the United Kingdom have seen their rankings decline further.
The report included a unique study on trust, where participants were asked to deliberately “lose” their wallets to measure how much money would be returned. The findings revealed that the number of wallets returned was double what people had anticipated. This global study indicates that trust in the goodwill of others correlates more strongly with happiness than previously assumed, according to the BBC.
John F. Helliwell, an economist at the University of British Columbia and an editor of the report, noted that the wallet experiment’s results suggested that “people are much happier living in places where they believe others care about them.” He concluded that overall, people tended to be “very pessimistic everywhere,” with more wallets returned than expected.
The 13th annual World Happiness Report was released in conjunction with the UN’s International Day of Happiness, ranking countries based on how residents rate their overall quality of life.
Finland led the ranking with an average score of 7.736 out of 10. Costa Rica and Mexico made their debut in the top ten for the first time. In contrast, both the UK and the US fell to 23rd and 24th place, marking the lowest position for the latter.
Conducted by the Well-being Research Centre at Oxford University, the study asked individuals to rate their lives on a scale from 0 (the worst possible life) to 10 (the best possible life).
The top ten happiest countries are:
1. Finland
2. Denmark
3. Iceland
4. Sweden
5. Netherlands
6. Costa Rica
7. Norway
8. Israel
9. Luxembourg
10. Mexico
The World Happiness Report 2025 also found a strong connection between social activities, such as sharing meals, and overall well-being. Additionally, it highlighted that family ties are linked to happiness, with households of four to five people experiencing the highest levels of happiness in both Mexico and Europe.
