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Finland Is Named the Happiest Country in the World for the Ninth Year in a Row

The World Happiness Report is an annual ranking of wellbeing around the globe. This year’s report spotlighted the consequences of social media use

Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent

March 23, 2026

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Finland has been ranked as the world’s happiest country for the ninth consecutive year, according to the 2026 World Happiness Report, an annual index of global wellbeing.

The Scandinavian nation, which earned a life evaluation score of 7.764 out of 10, was followed closely by Iceland, Denmark, Costa Rica and Sweden.

“Sisu, that mix of resilience, determination and inner strength, helps us navigate life’s challenges, from long, dark winters to economic downturns,” Miika Mäkitalo, CEO of the Finnish company HappyOrNot, says in a statement, per Forbes’ Laura Begley Bloom. “It comes from knowing that support is there when needed, whether through our strong social policies like generous shared parental leave and tuition-free university education or every person’s right to roam forests and recharge in nature.”

Costa Rica climbed 19 spots from its 2022 ranking and became the first Latin American country to crack the top five. Meanwhile, the United States came in at 23rd place.

The annual report compares survey responses from residents in more than 140 countries on topics including generosity, corruption and healthy life expectancy. Respondents were asked which emotions they had experienced on the previous day, such as enjoyment, interest, worry or anger. Behaviors such as donating, volunteering and helping strangers were also assessed.

“It’s not about wearing a big smile and laughing,” Laura Hall, a Copenhagen-based journalist and author, tells the BBC’s Lindsey Galloway. “It’s really about trust in society, trust in each other and the belief that everyone is working together for the common good.”

The primary happiness score comes from a single question, which roughly 1,000 people in each country answer annually: “Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to ten 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?”

Responses to this question, known as the Cantril Scale, are measured by calculating an average from the past three years.

“When it comes to happiness, building what is good in life is more important than finding and fixing what is bad,” economist John F. Helliwell, a founding editor of the report, says in a statement from the University of Oxford. “Both need doing, now more than ever.”

The World Happiness Report is a collaboration between Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Center and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. It was first released in its current form in 2012.

This year’s report emphasizes how social media affects young people’s happiness. Researchers found that adolescents who used social media for less than one hour per day had the highest wellbeing score, outpacing both those who spent more time on social media and those who didn’t use it at all. In 47 countries, young people who used social media for more than seven hours each day reported much lower wellbeing scores.

“The global evidence makes clear that the links between social media use and our wellbeing heavily depend on what platforms we’re using, who’s using them and how, as well as for how long,” Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, an Oxford economist and editor of the report, says in the statement. “Heavy usage is associated with much lower wellbeing, but those deliberately off social media also appear to be missing out on some positive effects.”

Most young people today are happier than those from 20 years ago. Even so, the scores of people under 25 in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and Australia have dropped by 0.86 points over the past decade. This year was also the second time that no English-speaking countries cracked the top ten.

Julie Ray, Gallup’s managing editor, thinks that the strength of social connections is driving some of these discrepancies.

“Social support is one of the strongest predictors of wellbeing, and previous research shows that in some countries younger people report feeling less supported, which may help explain the pattern,” she tells Reuters’ Anne Kauranen.

Christian Thorsberg | Read More

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.