Medical tourism statistics: how many people travel for treatment, and where they go

South Korea: foreign patients

Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare counts a “foreign patient” as a foreigner who does not live in Korea and is not in its national health insurance. It counted 605,768 in 2023, 1,170,467 in 2024 (up 93.2%) and about 2.01 million in 2025, with 2.72 million patient visits. In 2024, dermatology accounted for 705,000 patients, 56.6% of the total, far ahead of any other specialty.

Korea fits readers who are already visiting Asia: we publish Seoul hospital check-up prices, but a trip just for treatment means a long flight from Europe or North America.

Turkey: health tourists and spending

Turkey's figures come from TÜİK, the national statistics office, and are published by USHAŞ, a state company that promotes health tourism. 1,506,442 people came to Turkey for health care in 2024 and spent US$3.02 billion. In 2023 the count was 1,538,643 and spending US$3.01 billion, so 2024 was slightly lower in people and about the same in money. The series covers foreign visitors and Turkish citizens living abroad who come for health and medical reasons.

The UK Foreign Office's Turkey advice says cosmetic surgery, dental procedures and cardiac surgery are the most common treatments for medical tourists there, and that it is aware of 7 British nationals who died in Turkey in 2025 following medical procedures. Compare published prices in Turkey and read what governments advise before you book.

What each number counts

• ONS (Britain): completed visits, not people. One person making two trips counts twice. It covers residents of Great Britain, so Northern Ireland is not included. It comes from a one-off request (ad hoc 3021), not the main Travel Trends tables, which do not separate medical trips. On 4 September 2026 the ONS corrected how it assigned destination airports in its 2024 travel data; this table was published earlier, so the country split could change.
• Korea: patients who are foreign, not resident and not in Korean health insurance. The ministry also gives patient visits (2.72 million in 2025), which count a person more than once.
• Turkey: people who came for health and medical reasons, including Turkish citizens who live abroad, so it is not a count of foreign nationals only.

What is not counted

We found no official yearly count of medical trips from Canada, Ireland or the US. The CDC says that “each year, millions of US residents travel to another country for medical care”, most commonly to Mexico and Canada, without a figure. Countries that market themselves as destinations publish many other numbers, often from industry groups; we use only those from a statistics office or ministry we could read.