Every year on the International Day of Happiness, March 20, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network releases the World Happiness Report. In the 2025 edition, Finland once more tops the list of the happiest countries in the world – for the eighth year running.
The other Nordic countries also maintained their places from the previous year: Denmark in second, Iceland third, Sweden fourth and Norway seventh.
The report’s main list, “Country rankings by life evaluations,” compares the answers to one of the more than 100 questions in the Gallup World Poll. The question is: On a scale of zero to ten, where do you place your own life (with zero being the worst possible life and ten being the best possible life)?
These “life evaluations” put the focus on people’s contentedness with life. The report uses an average of the three most recent years to arrive at its list of the happiest countries.
A framework for building happiness
Cyclists enjoy great weather in Tampere, Finland.Photo: Jukka Salminen/Visit Tampere
When a country possesses a longstanding reputation for happiness, people tend to ask what the recipe is. There is no single answer, of course.
However, Finland has fostered what they call the “infrastructure of happiness.” The country has constructed and maintained the culture and the social institutions that form the basis and framework for individuals and communities to build their happiness.
Nations can take steps to encourage happiness – to help happiness happen. Research shows life satisfaction correlates with a well-functioning society that provides healthcare, social security and labour market access.
ThisisFINLAND has interviewed people – Finns and foreigners – about how they perceive happiness in Finland. In “My happy place in Finland,” four expats explain how living in Finland contributes to their view of happiness. In “We asked people in Finland what makes them happy,” passers-by in Helsinki give a wide range of answers. (Both articles include videos.)
Caring and sharing
Sauna and swimming are great ways to relax in the Finnish capital, according to Helsinki Happiness Hacks, compiled by ThisisFINLAND’s friends over at Visit Finland.Photo: Svante Gullichsen/Visit Finland
The 2025 World Happiness Report is 260 pages long. What else is in it?
Each year, the authors delve into happiness-related topics to paint a broad picture of issues that affect people. The focus in 2025 is “the impact of caring and sharing on people’s happiness.”
How do they measure something like that? They look at people’s answers to questions about the benevolence of others. If you lost your wallet and a stranger or a neighbour or a police officer found it, do you expect they would return it? Finland scores high on the “wallet indicator,” showing that people trust their fellow citizens.
The report states, “All international wallet-dropping experiments have shown Finland and the other Nordic countries to be among the best places to lose your wallet.”
Links to wellbeing
When wintering in Tampere, try taking the tram to a forest where you can go cross-country skiing.Photo: Laura Vanzo/Visit Tampere
There’s also data about how often people eat together. (Research shows that “dining alone is not good for your wellbeing,” and that sharing meals with others has a strong link with wellbeing in all regions of the globe.) Family meals remain a strong tradition in Finland: 81 percent of families with children eat together at least once a day.
Giving money to charity, doing volunteer work and helping strangers are also connected with caring behaviour. While Finland does not top those tables, the authors of the report suggest that there are other factors involved.
This brings us back to the Finnish infrastructure of happiness. Finland “has universally available and high-quality health, education and social support systems,” the report notes. Since “inequality of wellbeing is low,” there is “a correspondingly lower need for private charity.”
Finland and its infrastructure of happiness |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By ThisisFINLAND staff, March 2025
