Sovereign rows of the World Bank / WHO “Current health expenditure per capita (current US$)” indicator. Top 30 by most recent year. Aggregates excluded.
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How to use this chart
Play/Pause starts and stops the year-by-year animation, the year slider jumps to any year, and the speed selector (0.5×, 1×, 2×) changes playback speed. Each year shows the top 12 entries out of the 30 held in the dataset.
About this ranking
About this metric. “Health Expenditure per Capita by Country (Time Series)” reformats data published by the World Bank (World Bank indicator code SH.XPD.CHEX.PC.CD). Values are expressed in USD.
What to watch. The twist is that spending and outcomes diverge: the United States spends over $12,000 per person yet ranks mid-table in life expectancy, while Japan achieves world-leading longevity on less than a third of that. More is not always better here.
Caveats. Values are in nominal US dollars, so exchange rates and price levels inflate the gaps (PPP-based comparisons narrow them). The boundary between health and long-term care spending also differs by country, which nudges cross-country comparisons.
Trends in the data
The first thing to check in this series is how many countries have a value in a given year. All 30 report from 2019 to 2023, but only 15 do in 2024 — and the fifteen missing include regulars at the top: the United States, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Monaco and Japan. Luxembourg leading 2024 at 8,170 dollars is a consequence of the United States not reporting, not of Luxembourg overtaking it.
Taking 2023, the last year with all 30 countries, the United States leads decisively at 13,473 dollars, ahead of Switzerland (11,784), Liechtenstein (11,495), Norway (8,296) and Monaco (8,004). The United States stood at 4,549 dollars in 2000, so it has tripled in 23 years, adding nearly 4,000 dollars in the seven years from 9,536 in 2016 to 13,473 in 2023.
The standout increase over the 24 years is Ireland’s: from 1,565 dollars in 2000 to 7,395 in 2024, a 4.73× rise that moved it from 20th to 3rd. Luxembourg grew 2.82× from 2,901 to 8,170, the Netherlands 3.38× from 2,028 to 6,845 (14th to 5th), and Iceland 2.68× from 2,856 to 7,642. In multiples the leader is South Korea at 6.60×, from 475 to 3,137 dollars, climbing from 29th to 15th.
Japan is heading the other way. From 2,751 dollars in 2000 it reached 4,072 in 2010 and peaked at 4,582 in 2020, then fell to 4,202 in 2022 and 3,638 in 2023 — more than 20% below the peak. Rather than health spending actually falling, the natural reading is that a weaker yen is pushing the nominal dollar figure down. Japan ranks 24th of 30 in 2023, placing it in the lower group on this indicator despite spending over 11% of GDP on health, among the highest shares in the world.
Trivia quiz
What WHO goal describes everyone being able to get needed health care without financial hardship?
Universal health coverage (UHC), also one of the Sustainable Development Goals. (Source)
What is Japan's system of enrolling all citizens in public health insurance called, and when was it achieved?
Universal health insurance (kokumin kai hoken), achieved in 1961 and still the basis of Japan's health system. (Source)
Which measure is often used to compare health spending across economies of different sizes?
Health expenditure as a share of GDP; combined with the per-capita figure it shows how much a country devotes to health. (Source)
Source
World Bank / WHO — Health expenditure per capita (SH.XPD.CHEX.PC.CD)