How does health spending in the U.S. compare to other countries? – Peterson

This collection of charts examines how U.S. healthcare spending compares to other large, wealthy OECD nations, utilizing metrics based on GDP and GDP per capita. The analysis incorporates data from the OECD Health Statistics database for international peers and the 2024 National Health Expenditure Data for the United States.

Relative to the size of its economy, the U.S. allocates more funding toward healthcare than other high-income nations.

While wealthy countries generally spend more per person on medical care than lower-income nations, the U.S. spends significantly more per capita even when compared to its high-income peers.

Comparing healthcare expenditures across borders is complex, as every nation possesses unique political, economic, and social characteristics that influence spending. Because health costs are closely linked to a country’s overall wealth, the following charts focus on comparing the U.S. to similarly large and affluent OECD members.

On average, other large, wealthy countries spend roughly half as much per person on health as the United States.

In 2024, health consumption expenditures averaged $14,775 per person in the U.S., which was nearly $5,000 higher than in Switzerland, the next highest peer country. The average per-capita spending in comparable high-income nations was $7,860, or about half of the U.S. figure.

Per capita health spending grew more in other peer nations than in the United States between 2023 and 2024.

Although health spending per capita rose in every peer nation between 2023 and 2024, the 6.4% increase observed in the U.S. was lower than the growth rates seen in other comparable countries, such as the Netherlands (10.8%), Germany (10.1%), Austria (9.1%), and Belgium (8.0%). Notably, the 6.4% U.S. increase is higher than the year-over-year growth recorded between 2022 and 2023 (5.4%) and 2021 and 2022 (2.9%).

In terms of raw dollar amounts, the U.S. experienced the largest increase, rising $885 from 2023 levels. This is slightly higher than the $862 per-person increase in Germany and the $822 per-person increase in the Netherlands.

Health spending as a share of GDP in the U.S. remained stable in 2024, as economic growth roughly matched the increase in health expenditures.

Over the last fifty years, the gap between the U.S. and comparable OECD countries regarding health spending as a share of the economy has widened. In 1970, the U.S. dedicated 6.0% of its GDP to health, a figure similar to the 4.9% average of its peers. The U.S. remained relatively aligned with other nations until the 1980s, when domestic health spending began to outpace GDP growth at a much faster rate. From that point until the 2020s, health spending as a share of the economy grew more rapidly in the U.S. than in peer nations.

All high-income countries experienced unusually high health spending in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. spent a record 18.7% of its GDP on health consumption that year. While spending dipped slightly by 2021, the U.S. spent 17.2% of its GDP on health in 2024—a figure still substantially higher than the 11.2% average seen in peer countries.

At times the U.S. has seen faster health spending growth, but more recently, health spending growth has been higher in comparable countries.

While the U.S. has historically maintained uniquely high levels of health spending, recent years have seen faster growth rates in peer nations.

Beginning in the 2010s, the growth of health spending decelerated in both the U.S. and its peers. From 2010 to 2014, the U.S. saw an average annual growth rate of 2.5%, down from 5.4% during the previous decade. Comparable countries also experienced a slowdown, with average annual growth falling from 4.5% in the 2000s to 3.6% in the first half of the 2010s.

In the five years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic (2015-2020), the growth of U.S. health spending per capita was similar to that of its peers. However, between 2020 and 2024, the average annual spending growth rate for those comparable countries rose by 4.9%, compared to a slightly lower 4.2% increase for the U.S. during the same period.

Health spending growth among peer countries outpaced the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic but returned to similar levels by 2023.

Following the pandemic, GDP growth lagged behind health spending. By 2021, however, GDP growth had resumed an upward trajectory in both the U.S. and other peer nations.

Health spending has continued to outpace GDP growth in the U.S. and peer countries, resulting in an increase in health spending as a share of GDP.

United States health consumption expenditure figures are derived from the 2024 National Health Expenditure Accounts, produced by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and published in the National Health Expenditure Historical tables. OECD health consumption data includes peer countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Health consumption expenditures specifically cover the consumption of medical goods and services; they exclude investments in structures, equipment, or research, which have been removed from NHE totals and are omitted from OECD data. All figures are expressed in current U.S. dollars.

OECD data carries several caveats regarding its provisional nature. GDP per capita data for 2024 is provisional for Australia, Belgium, Costa Rica, Finland, Greece, Japan, Latvia, Mexico, Norway, the Slovak Republic, and Spain, while data for Korea is estimated. Similarly, 2024 health spending per capita data is provisional for Austria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Health spending and GDP data were unavailable for Colombia, the Czech Republic, Iceland, and Turkey.

There are also inconsistencies in definitions and time series when utilizing multi-year OECD data. Figures for 2023 and 2024 are estimated for Australia, Belgium, and Japan. Health spending data is marked as “Definition differs” for years prior to 2023 in Australia, Belgium, Canada, and Japan, and there are time series breaks in 2021 and 2023 for Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Data were downloaded on January 21, 2026.

The Peterson Center on Healthcare and KFF are partnering to monitor how well the U.S. healthcare system is performing in terms of quality and cost.