Canada tumbles in ‘best country’ rankings, sits below the U.S.

Canada has dropped several places in a global ranking list of the “best countries” in the world, one step below its neighbour to the south.

According to the U.S. News Best Countries ranking, Canada ranked 19th on the list for 2025, while the United States ranked 18th.

The rankings mark a tumble for Canada, which placed fourth in 2024 and second in 2023. However, this is largely owing to a change in methodology for how the rankings are decided.

Instead of the “the perceptions-based approach of prior years,” the list ranked countries on eight metrics – governance, health, infrastructure, natural environment, opportunity, civic health, culture and tourism, and economic development.

Governance and infrastructure, in which Canada ranked 18th and 20th. respectively, had the highest weightage. While Canada scored high on lack of political violence and the rule of law, the governance score was dragged down by its tax system.

On infrastructure, while Canada got a perfect score on electricity access, it scored quite poorly on renewable electricity.

Canada’s natural environment ranked 63rd, the country’s lowest rank on any metric. This was largely due to high carbon emissions and a lack of urban green space, according to the ranking. Canada’s highest rank was for culture and tourism, ranking eighth in the world.

The country ranked 27th in health. While Canada got a perfect score on universal health coverage and scored very high on life expectancy, its overall health score was dragged down by a lack of physicians and hospital beds.