It’s been greater than 10 years since the first-ever World Happiness Report was launched in 2012. Since then, the United Nations has launched an annual rating of the world’s happiest countries – the locations the place the populations are, on common, extra content material than in different locations. In that point, many countries have gone via a multi-year pandemic, pure disasters and wars – however the UN and governments throughout the globe stay dedicated to discovering out what, precisely, makes folks happier to allow them to develop insurance policies to extend well-being.
This analysis, launched on Thursday 19 March 2026 (the day earlier than World Happiness Day), relies on a three-year common of every inhabitants’s evaluation of their high quality of life. It takes into consideration six key components that influence happiness: social help, revenue, well being, freedom, generosity, and the absence of corruption. It additionally investigates the distribution of happiness inside countries (spoiler alert: countries the place the “happiness gap” is smaller – the place the inhabitants has an analogous expertise of and entry to the six components listed above – are typically happier general).
One of the greatest takeaways from the 2026 report is the undeniable fact that social media use is contributing to a “drop in wellbeing amongst younger folks in English-speaking countries” – particularly in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and especially among girls. In fact, “one international survey of 15-year-olds in nearly 50 countries suggests heavy social media use is associated, on average, with a significant drop in wellbeing among the students surveyed”. However, while the report finds that younger people who use social media for less than one hour per day report the highest levels of wellbeing, it also shows that those wellbeing levels are higher than for those who do not use social media at all.
What is the happiest country in the world?
Once again, Finland has come out on top as the happiest country in the world – for the ninth year running.
Is the UK on the list of the happiest countries?
The UK isn’t in the prime 10 of the happiest countries in the world. It comes in at quantity 29, dropping 5 locations from its twenty fourth slot in 2025 (and in addition dropped 4 locations from its twentieth slot in 2024).
This 12 months’s survey is the second 12 months working with no English-speaking countries that includes in the prime 10. Costa Rica comes in fourth place, it is highest rating but (up from twenty third in 2023), and Switzerland is again in the prime 10 after a notable absence final 12 months.
How does the examine work?
Below, we discuss a lot of the components which may clarify the variation in self-reported happiness between countries globally. The World Happiness Report would not assemble its listing primarily based on these components and measures – slightly, the folks polled present self-assessments of their very own lives by putting themselves on the Cantril Scale. This is mainly assessing the place you’ll put your self on a ladder of self-satisfaction – the prime of the ladder, or 10, could be the happiest you may be, whereas the backside of the ladder, or 0, could be the least completely happy you may be.
The World Happiness Report then measures and investigates a variety of components that would correlate with the variations in the common happiness of every nation’s inhabitants, which we talk about under. While specialists clarify the outcomes utilizing the six components said above, you will need to do not forget that the rating itself relies on the solutions given by folks at the time of questioning, so it’s not essentially taken into consideration or mediated by wider cultural, political or societal incidents.