Afghanistan Ranked World’s Unhappiest Country Again in Global Report

Afghanistan has again been ranked the world’s unhappiest country, while Finland retained the top spot in the latest World Happiness Report.

Afghanistan has once again been ranked the world’s unhappiest country, according to the latest World Happiness Report published on Saturday. Finland topped the global ranking again, while Afghanistan remained at the very bottom of the list.

The report placed Iceland and Denmark in second and third place, respectively, while Costa Rica and Sweden completed the top five happiest countries in the world. Afghanistan was ranked 147th, behind Sierra Leone and Malawi.

Afghanistan had also been ranked the world’s saddest country in last year’s report, underlining the country’s continued struggle with low life satisfaction and worsening social conditions.

The report comes as Afghanistan continues to face deep economic hardship, growing social restrictions, and declining personal freedoms since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. These pressures have contributed to a sharp fall in hope, wellbeing and public confidence.

Widespread restrictions on women and girls, limited access to education and employment, and the continued erosion of public services are among the key reasons Afghanistan remains at the bottom of the global happiness index.

The World Happiness Report 2026 said Finland remained “in a group of one at the top,” followed by Iceland, Denmark and Costa Rica, while Afghanistan again ranked last in the survey of global life evaluations. The report also noted that Afghanistan’s average life evaluation was 1.45 on a 0–10 scale, with Afghan women reporting especially severe hardship.

The report, produced by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford in partnership with Gallup and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, is based largely on people’s own assessments of their lives. It has consistently placed Afghanistan among the world’s lowest-ranked countries in recent years.

The latest ranking reinforces the depth of Afghanistan’s ongoing crisis, showing that years of conflict, poverty, displacement and shrinking freedoms continue to weigh heavily on the daily lives of its people.

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