Healthcare in Taiwan

Healthcare in Taiwan is administered by the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Executive Yuan. As with other developed economies, Taiwanese people are well-nourished but face such health problems as chronic obesity and heart disease. In 2023, Taiwan had 2.3 physicians and 7.3 hospital beds per 1,000 population. There were 476 hospitals and 23,421 clinics in the country. Per capita health expenditures totaled US$2,522 in 2023. Health expenditures constituted 7.8% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023; 63% of the expenditures were from public funds. Overall life expectancy in 2025 is 80.94 years.

Recent major health issues include the SARS crisis in 2003, though the island was later declared safe by the World Health Organization (WHO). In 2020, Taiwan was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, experiencing four waves of widespread community transmission between January 2020 and March 2023. It successfully contained the disease in the first two years but shifted its control strategy from containment to mitigation in April 2022 when Omicron infections surged in the community.

According to the Numbeo Health Care Index in 2025, Taiwan has the best healthcare system in the world, scoring 86.5 out of 100, a slight increase from 86 the previous year. This marked the seventh consecutive year that Taiwan has ranked first in the Numbeo Health Care Index. The 2024 edition of the CEOWORLD Magazine Health Care Index also ranked Taiwan first among 110 countries surveyed, with a score of 78.72 out of 100.