These Are 10 Most Happiest Countries As Per World Happiness Report 2025; Where Does India Stand?

World Happiness Report 2025: Finland remains the top-ranked country in the World Happiness Index 2025, leading the Nordic nations as the happiest region globally. This marks Finland’s eighth consecutive year as the world’s happiest country. Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden follow closely, maintaining their positions in the top four happiest countries in the world.

According to the report, the impressive happiness rankings of the Nordic countries can be attributed to their strong social and economic systems. This year’s report was particularly compiled by studying the countries based on the impact of caring and sharing on people’s happiness.

• Finland

• Denmark

• Iceland

• Sweden

• Netherlands

• Costa Rica

• Norway

• Israel

• Luxembourg

• Mexico

Here's a comparison of where these countries ranked in 2023 and whether their positions improved or declined in 2024.

India was ranked 118th out of the 147 countries evaluated in the 2025 World Happiness Index. India made slight improvement in its happiness quotient, up from 126 in 2024 to 118 this year.

Like other countries, India was evaluated on six key factors: Social support, GDP per capita, Healthy life expectancy, Freedom, Generosity, and Perceptions of corruption. This year, its best performing indicator was Freedom at 23rd rank, followed by Generosity at 51st rank. However, Social support ranked India at 128, leading to an overall decline in its happiness ranking.

India achieved its best happiness ranking in 2022 at 94, while its worst rank of 144 came in 2012.

The report was compiled by multiple international agencies, including the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, in partnership with the UN and an independent editorial board.

The United States was positioned at 24th rank, which marks its lowest yet on the World Happiness Index. One of the key contributing factors to the US’ slump in the index was the increasing number of Americans dining alone. The report mentioned, that one in four Americans reported eating all of their meals alone the previous day in 2023, highlighting a growing loneliness epidemic.

The report also suggested that there was a general increase among young adults experiencing a decline in social connection. However, Mexico, India, and Egypt were among the few notable exceptions, where there were signs of significant improvements in the quality of social connections among young adults.

The report also identified political polarisation and votes against "the system" as a few key factors contributing to declining happiness in the US and sections of Europe. 

“In general, the Western industrial countries are now less happy than they were between 2005 and 2010,” it said.

The World Happiness Report is published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, in partnership with Gallup, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and an independent editorial board.