The Netherlands has once again made it into the top 10 in the ranking of the world’s happiest countries. According to the World Happiness Report for 2025, Dutch residents live in the fifth-happiest country in the world.
Published every year in the spring, the World Happiness Report ranks 147 countries across the globe according to how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be. The ranking is compiled using data from the Gallup World Poll, in which respondents are asked to evaluate the happiness of their own lives on a scale of one to 10.
Using the survey results, the ranking also shows the estimated extent to which six different factors impact happiness:
All countries involved in the ranking are then awarded an overall average score out of 10, which is then compared to the benchmark set by the imaginary country “Dystopia” - home to the world’s least-happy people. The theme for 2025 is “caring and sharing”, focusing on how being cared for and caring for others can affect the happiness of people around the world. Survey respondents were also asked whether they had donated to charity, helped a stranger or volunteered in the recent past.
For the eighth year in a row, Finland has claimed the top spot with a score of 7,736. Denmark and Iceland round out the top three. Once again, Afghanistan took the bottom spot as the unhappiest country, with a score of just 1,364 out of 10.
Worldwide, the report noted that practices that are known to cause sadness and loneliness are becoming more common. In one example, they noted that while people who live in groups of four to five people are the happiest in Europe, the number of people living alone on the continent has soared.
Another trend is the decline in happiness among people in large industrialised nations. For the first time since the ranking was conceived, none of the traditional large economies like the United Kingdom, United States, France or Germany featured in the top 20.
After slipping down one position in the ranking last year, the Netherlands has returned to fifth place for 2025 with a score of 7,306 out of 10. In this year’s report, researchers also included a ranking on how likely respondents thought it would be for others to return their lost wallets.
According to the study, when people believe that others are likely to return a lost wallet, the population is happier. In the Netherlands, residents were almost certain that their wallets would be returned. Out of all the countries, they had the strongest belief that their neighbours would return their wallets. People also thought that strangers (4) and the police (6) were more than likely to return their property.
According to the 2025 report, these are the world’s happiest countries:
For more information about the report and to see the full ranking, visit the World Happiness Report 2025.
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