The Most Miserable Country In The World

The World Happiness Report is released every year and is widely regarded as the benchmark for how people feel about life in their own countries. Published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford in partnership with Gallup and the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the 2025 edition covers 147 nations.

The methodology draws on Gallup World Poll data, surveying approximately 1,000 people per country each year. Respondents evaluate their lives using a 0-to-10 scale, where 10 represents the best possible life. The rankings reflect a three-year average of those scores, covering 2022 through 2024. Six key factors help explain the results: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption.

The 2025 report digs deeper through additional chapters focused on kindness and benevolence, the role of sharing meals in building community, household size and family bonds, social connections among young people, and the link between trust, distress, and overall wellbeing. One striking finding: people consistently underestimate the kindness of strangers. In a 40-country experiment, lost wallets were returned roughly twice as often as survey respondents predicted they would be.

At the top of the rankings, the Nordic nations continue their dominance. Finland has held first place for eight consecutive years, posting a score of 7.7 out of 10. Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, and the Netherlands hold the next four spots, while Costa Rica made history by climbing to sixth place, the highest ranking ever achieved by a Latin American country. Norway rounded out the top seven. The United States fell to 24th place, its lowest-ever position in the report’s history, with researchers pointing to rising political polarization, social isolation, and a sharp increase in the share of Americans who eat all their meals alone.

At the very bottom, Afghanistan ranked last for the 147-nation list, with a happiness score of just 1.364. That figure is the lowest average life evaluation ever recorded in the report. Sierra Leone sat just above it at 146th, and Lebanon ranked 145th.

Afghanistan’s position at the bottom is no surprise given its history. The country has endured near-continuous armed conflict for decades, from the Soviet invasion of the 1980s through the U.S.-led war that ended with the Taliban’s return to power in 2021. The Taliban now governs a nation where women have been systematically stripped of access to education and public life.

Since the article was first published, the conflict along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan has escalated dramatically. Tensions that produced a brief ceasefire in October 2025 collapsed entirely in late February 2026, when Pakistan declared “open war” and launched Operation Ghazab lil Haq, conducting airstrikes on Kabul, Kandahar, and dozens of border locations. The UN reported that since February 26, 2026, the fighting has produced at least 289 civilian casualties inside Afghanistan and displaced more than 115,000 people. A Pakistani airstrike on a drug rehabilitation facility in Kabul on March 16 killed hundreds more. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have sought to broker a ceasefire, so far without a lasting agreement.

The humanitarian picture beyond the conflict is equally grim. Afghanistan ranks near the very bottom of the world on life expectancy, placing it 227th globally according to CIA World Factbook data. Real GDP per capita remains one of the lowest on earth, ranking 205th worldwide. With fighting showing no signs of ending and a governing authority that has isolated itself internationally, there is little on the horizon to suggest Afghanistan’s happiness score will improve in future editions of the report.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect the 2025 World Happiness Report rankings, including Finland’s eighth consecutive first-place finish, Costa Rica’s historic rise to sixth, and the U.S. falling to its lowest-ever ranking of 24th. Afghanistan’s record-low happiness score of 1.364 has been added, along with the significant escalation of the Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict in early 2026, including Pakistan’s declaration of “open war,” airstrikes on Kabul and Kandahar, and UN figures showing more than 289 civilian casualties and 115,000 displaced since February 26, 2026.