An oriented link is positive if it has a link diagram whose crossings are all positive. An oriented link is almost positive if it is not positive and has a link diagram with exactly one negative crossing. It is known that the Rasmussen invariant, 4-genus, and 3-genus of a positive knot are equal. In this paper, we prove that the Rasmussen invariant, 4-genus, and 3-genus of an almost positive knot are equal. Moreover, we determine the Rasmussen invariant of an almost positive knot in terms of its almost positive knot diagram. As corollaries, we prove that all almost positive knots are not homogeneous, and there is no almost positive knot of 4-genus one.

Using the Fiedler–Polyak–Viro Gauß diagram formulae we study the Vassiliev invariants of degree 2 and 3 on almost positive knots. As a consequence we show that the number of almost positive knots of a given genus or unknotting number grows polynomially in the crossing number, and also recover and extend, inter alia to their untwisted Whitehead doubles, previous results on the polynomials and signatures of such knots. In particular, we prove that there are no achiral almost positive knots and classify all almost positive diagrams of the unknot. We give an application to contact geometry (Legendrian knots) and property P.