The Burrow
Apr 11, 2025
While you can find love anywhere in the world, your location can influence a lot about your relationship. From marriage rates to overall happiness levels, many factors can impact couples depending on what country you live in. With couples seeking the longest lives possible together, good healthcare and health insurance can play a huge role in making the most of your relationship.
We analysed data from around the world to find the countries that are the best for happy couples, with life expectancy, divorce rate, and happiness all playing a role in ranking our best picks. By putting the results in an index, we found the top areas in each category, as well as the best overall locations for coupling up. Read on to see our findings.
When it came to our couple happiness index, Switzerland topped the list with an impressive score of 71.50 out of 100. The life expectancy of Swiss couples is the highest in Europe at 83.5 years, and the country ranks sixth in the world for happiness levels. With 4.1 weddings per 1000 people every year, it also ranks in the top 10 European countries for rate of marriages. All these strong scores across multiple categories even out to make Switzerland the best all-rounder country for happy couples.
The only country to beat Switzerland for life expectancy in our rankings is Japan, which also ranked second in our overall couple happiness index (scoring 69.19/100).
The average lifespan in Japan is a huge 84 years, suggesting a strong healthcare system and healthy lifestyle practices that can help couples grow old together. The nation also ranks in the world for its high marriage rate, with 4.3 weddings per 1,000 people every year.
With just 0.7 divorces per 1,000 residents annually, Mexico and Ireland are the two countries on our list where marriages are the least likely to end in legal separation.
Ireland ranks fourth overall in our index, with a total score of 66.96. Mexico, however, ranks much lower at 25th overall, scoring 52.02 points out of a possible 100 in our couples’ index. This suggests that while divorce rates are low, the average quality of its marriages is similarly low.
According to our statistics, Finland has the happiest couples in the world, with a happiness index of 7.804. This puts it just ahead of other Scandinavian countries such as Denmark in second place (7.586) and Sweden in fourth (7.395).
However, while its couples are seemingly very happy, Finland also ranks as the country on our list with the third-highest rate of divorces; every year, an average of 2.4 separations take place per 1,000 people. This means that despite scoring so high on happiness, it takes 18th on our overall index.
It’s not just your country that can affect your relationship, but where you live in it too. With Australia being such a large and varied country, there is plenty of regional variation when it comes to couples’ happiness.
The best area for couples in Australia is away from the mainland: Tasmania scores 76.24 points out of a possible 100, giving it a comfortable lead over all other states.
Tasmania boasts the second-highest marriage rate in the country (tied with Western Australia) with 4.4 marriages per 1,000 people each year. Additionally, it has the joint-third lowest divorce rate, with 1.7 per thousand per year.
With 1.3 divorces per 1,000 residents annually, Australia’s Northern Territory is the state in the country with the fewest legal separations. Despite this, it also has the lowest rate of marriage of all the states we analysed, with just 3.1 weddings per 1,000 people in the state each year.
Overall, the state ranks as the second lowest on our couples happiness index with a score of 50. Regardless, it claims top spot in an important category for our list.
Although it scores the lowest of all Australian states on total couples’ happiness (37.44 points out of 100 on our index), the Australian Capital Territory has the highest life expectancy in the country. In fact, the average resident here lives to be a staggering 84.1 years old, putting it 0.4 years ahead of Western Australia in second.
Its score is largely brought down by having the highest divorce rate in the country, with 2.5 people separated per 1,000 annually.
Across the 50 states, there’s a wide range of differences that can affect the quality of marriages. Here are the top 5 states in America according to our couples’ happiness index:
Topping our rankings for both life expectancy (79.9 years) and overall happiness (66.31), Hawaii is officially the best state in the USA for happy couples. With an overall score of 60.96, it proves to be a strong contender in almost every category it ranked in.
Its marriage rate may have been boosted considerably by tourism though, as many couples seek a tropical getaway for their wedding. Hawaii was one of only two states in our list to score double digits on marriage rate, with 14.4 weddings per 1,000 residents annually. It was only beaten in this category by Nevada (25.9/1k people per year), with Las Vegas’ novelty wedding industry giving a strong helping hand.
South Dakota finished within touching distance of Hawaii on our list, with a total score of 60.59 placing it less than one index point behind our overall leader.
The state has the lowest rate of people searching on Google for couples therapy in all of America (355.7 searches per 100k residents in a year), suggesting a high average quality of relationships. Plus, with a happiness index of 57.6, it places twelfth out of all 50 states for its overall positivity.
Generally scoring well across the board, it’s Iowa’s strong average ranking that gives it third place on our couples’ happiness index. Despite having a low average marriage rate of 5.5 per 1,000 residents each year (the average across all states is 6.74), it scores a total of 57.73 points to earn a podium finish.
Ranking just slightly lower than its Southern neighbour, North Dakota has a total score of 57.04 on our index. Thanks to a low couples’ therapy Google search volume of 438.8 queries per 100k residents annually, and a strong life expectancy of 77.6 years, it earns a place towards the top of our list.
Nebraska’s strong overall performances across our rankings gives it a total score of 56.60 in our couples’ happiness index. It lands in the top 10 happiest states in America, with a happiness index rating of 58.19, and boasts a high average life expectancy of 77.8 years. While states such as Massachusetts and New Jersey follow closely behind, it’s the state that closes out our top 5.
Compare the Market’s Executive General Manager of Health Insurance, Steven Spicer, notes the role that health insurance can play in your relationship.“With longer life expectancies, you have more room to make long-term plans with your partner and make the most of growing older together,” Mr Spicer says.
“For those who need it, some health funds will pay a benefit toward marriage counselling.
“Having a strong healthcare system in place is crucial to living a long life and getting the right health insurance can ensure that you’re protected for a wide range of conditions that may affect you or your partner.”
This dataset contains 3 rankings: one ranks 30 countries, another ranks all US states, and one ranks Australian states/territories. Each dataset compares how happy couples are in the respective location.
To collect the data, 5 different factors were considered (4 for AUS).
Once the data was collected, the factors were then normalised to provide each with a score between 0 and 1. If data was not available, a score of 0 was given.
The normalised values were then summed and multiplied, to give each location a total score out of 100. The locations were then ranked from highest to lowest, based on their total scores. All data is correct as of 28/02/25. All data is accurate with regards to the sources provided.