Current health expenditure in South America

12 countries in South America, 2023. Unit: % of GDP. World ranking →

First in the ranking
10.3 %
Argentina
Median country
7.9 %
half above, half below
World
10.1 %
World Bank aggregate
Range
2.5 to 10.3
Guyana - Argentina

How to read it

Across 12 countries in South America, the highest value is in Argentina (10.3 %) and the lowest in Guyana (2.5 %).

The median country is at 7.9 %: half are above, half below.

Level of current health expenditure expressed as a percentage of GDP. Estimates of current health expenditures include healthcare goods and services consumed during each year. This indicator does not include capital health expenditures such as buildings, machinery, IT and stocks of vaccines for emergency or outbreaks.

Compare selected countries · on the world map

Source: Global Health Expenditure Database, updated December 12th, 2025, World Health Organization (WHO), uri: https://apps.who.int/nha/database · via World Bank WDI (SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS) · licence

Health spending over time

%

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Ranking of countries

2023
In chart Share of the highest value
1Argentina10.3
2Chile10.2
3Brazil9.7
4Uruguay9.0
5Paraguay8.4
6Colombia8.2
7Ecuador7.6
8Bolivia6.9
9Peru5.6
10Suriname5.4
11Venezuela3.8
12Guyana2.5
World Bank, WDI · SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS · 2023 · CC BY 4.0 Source and licence

Tick a country in the table to add it to the chart above, up to six at a time. The ranking uses the latest year for which at least half of the countries have a value; countries without a value that year are not listed.