If you’re happy and you know it… you’re probably Nordic. The 2025 ranking of the world’s happiest countries has just dropped, and Nordic nations have claimed the top four spots for yet another year. So, where do we happy little Vegemites stand? After just scraping into tenth place in 2024, Australia has slipped to 11th this year – just ahead of our mates across the ditch in New Zealand.
Curious to find out how the report measures a country’s happiness levels? Every year, Gallup, a consultancy and market research firm, in association with the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford (UN), releases a World Happiness Report, which ranks more than 147 countries from most to least happy. They gather data by asking people from each country to rate their life satisfaction on a scale from one to ten. While these responses determine the rankings, researchers also consider six key factors to explain differences between nations: GDP per capita, life expectancy, social support, sense of freedom, generosity and perceptions of corruption.
In 2024, Australia climbed two ranks to be named the tenth happiest country on Earth. However, we were bumped out of the top ten in 2025, ranking 11th, just ahead of New Zealand. A top 20 ranking is still something to smile about in our eyes though!
Last year, Australia was one of the only non-European countries to crack the top ten, with Finland securing the top spot for the eighth year in a row (those sauna sessions must be working wonders). However, this year’s top ten includes two countries from Latin America, with Costa Rica in sixth place and Mexico in tenth. Meanwhile, Israel secures eighth place as the sole Middle Eastern nation in the rankings. You can check out the full list of the world’s happiest countries for 2025 here, or see how Australia fares below.
These are the 20 happiest countries in the world for 2025:
- Finland
- Denmark
- Iceland
- Sweden
- Netherlands
- Costa Rica
- Norway
- Israel
- Luxembourg
- Mexico
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Switzerland
- Belgium
- Ireland
- Lithuania
- Austria
- Canada
- Slovenia
- Czechia