Which countries spend the largest share of their GDP on healthcare?
This 2026 ranking uses the latest available World Bank and World Health Organization (WHO) data, covering healthcare expenditure observations from 2023 and 2024.
Tuvalu leads the ranking at 27.09% of GDP, followed by Nauru at 18.21% and the United States at 16.69%.
The comparison covers 192 countries, highlighting how healthcare spending differs relative to the size of national economies.
Top Countries With the Highest Healthcare Spending (% of GDP)
Healthcare Spending Rankings by Country
The following table ranks 192 countries by current health expenditure as a percentage of GDP, from highest to lowest.
The figures include government and private healthcare spending. Each country's actual reporting year is shown separately, as the latest available observations range from 2023 to 2024.
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators; WHO Global Health Expenditure Database (2023–2024).
Key Findings
Tuvalu Leads Global Healthcare Spending
Tuvalu ranks first at 27.09% of GDP (2023), followed by Nauru at 18.21%. The difference between the two countries is 8.88 percentage points.
The United States Ranks Third
The United States records healthcare spending equivalent to 16.69% of GDP (2023), placing it third globally in this comparison.
Germany (12.27%, 2024) and Austria (11.83%, 2024) also rank among the top ten.
Small Pacific Economies Stand Out
Four of the top seven countries are Pacific island nations: Tuvalu, Nauru, the Marshall Islands (13.41%) and Micronesia (12.88%).
Their high positions highlight the importance of comparing healthcare expenditure relative to economic size rather than total spending.
European Countries Feature Among the Leaders
Germany ranks ninth, followed by Austria in tenth place.
Switzerland (11.69%, 2023), France (11.54%, 2024) and Sweden (11.22%, 2024) also report healthcare expenditure exceeding 11% of GDP.
What Does Healthcare Spending (% of GDP) Mean?
Current health expenditure (% of GDP) measures the share of a country's economic output spent on healthcare goods and services.
It includes spending financed by governments, private insurance, households and other sources, but excludes capital investments such as hospital construction.
A higher percentage does not necessarily indicate better healthcare quality or higher spending per person.
Data Source and Methodology
This 2026 edition uses the World Bank's Current Health Expenditure (% of GDP) indicator, based on WHO's Global Health Expenditure Database.
The comparison covers 192 countries with available observations from 2023 or 2024. Each country is ranked using its latest available figure within this period, with values displayed to two decimal places.
The year 2026 refers to the ranking edition, not the observation year of the underlying statistics. Because reporting years differ, this is a latest-available comparison rather than a single-year assessment.
Regional aggregates and entries without observations for 2023 or 2024 are excluded.
Conclusion
The latest available healthcare expenditure data highlights significant differences in how much countries spend on healthcare relative to their economic size.
Tuvalu, Nauru and the United States lead the 2026 edition of the rankings, while several European and Pacific island economies also record high expenditure shares.
However, healthcare spending alone cannot determine how effective or accessible a country's health system is.
Source
World Bank, World Development Indicators — Current Health Expenditure (% of GDP), based on the WHO Global Health Expenditure Database.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS
Data licensed under CC BY 4.0. Rankings compiled by The Data Visual.
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