About 470,000 U.S. air trips abroad in 2025 were made mainly for medical treatment, and about 1.12 million included treatment as one purpose. Both numbers are xcuro estimates built from a U.S. Commerce Department survey of air travelers. They leave out land crossings into Mexico, which no national survey we found has counted. South Korea reported 173,363 U.S. patients in 2025, the clearest official count we found, but dermatology rather than surgery leads its latest breakdown for Americans.
Published November 2026 by the xcuro editorial team. Percentages below come from the named source. Trip counts are our own arithmetic and are labeled as estimates.
The headline estimate: air trips for treatment, 2022 to 2025
The best national measure is the Survey of International Air Travelers (SIAT) from the National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO), part of the Commerce Department. It asks U.S. residents flying abroad why they are traveling, and "health treatment" is one answer. NTTO publishes the percentages. It does not publish a medical trip count, so we calculated one: each percentage multiplied by the number of travelers NTTO shows in the same workbook (overseas, Mexico, Canada).
| 2025 air market | Travelers (the base) | Main purpose, % | Main-purpose trips (estimate) | One purpose, % | Trips with treatment as a purpose (estimate) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overseas | 56,155,000 | 0.6 | ≈337,000 | 1.6 | ≈898,000 |
| Mexico (air) | 13,973,000 | 0.9 | ≈126,000 | 1.5 | ≈210,000 |
| Canada (air) | 5,385,000 | 0.2 | ≈11,000 | 0.3 | ≈16,000 |
| Total | 75,513,000 | ≈474,000 | ≈1,124,000 |
The same calculation for each year gives this series:
| Year | Treatment was the main purpose (estimate) | Treatment was one purpose (estimate) |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | ≈424,000 | ≈797,000 |
| 2023 | ≈383,000 | ≈945,000 |
| 2024 | ≈507,000 | ≈1,078,000 |
| 2025 | ≈474,000 | ≈1,124,000 |
The second column includes the first, so about 650,000 trips in 2025 had treatment as a secondary purpose. These are estimates with real uncertainty. NTTO rounds percentages to one decimal place, which alone puts the 2025 main-purpose total between about 436,000 and 511,000. Adding sampling error, a fair reading is roughly 400,000 to 550,000 main-purpose trips and 1.0 to 1.2 million trips with treatment as one purpose. Main-purpose changes from one year to the next are mostly within that noise and should not be reported as trends. Trips with treatment as one purpose rose about 41% from 2022 to 2025, but all air travel in these tables rose about 39%, so the share barely moved.
What these numbers leave out
- Land crossings. NTTO counted 39.9 million U.S. trips to Mexico in 2024. The SIAT air base for that year was 13.8 million, so about 26 million trips, roughly two-thirds, did not go by air (our calculation). The survey does not cover them. Drive-in patients in Tijuana or Los Algodones are not in our totals. Neither is anyone who flies to San Diego and walks across. Land trips to Canada are also excluded.
- Representativeness. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) says SIAT "only covers a nonrepresentative portion" of U.S.-Mexico travel.
- People. These are trips, not individuals. One patient making two trips counts twice.
- Later decisions. The survey is given around departure, so someone who arranges care after arriving is unlikely to be counted.
- Meaning of "treatment." The tables do not split surgery from dental work or a check-up, and they do not show whether the traveler was the patient or a companion.
Where they go
These estimates use NTTO's regional tables, and the four-year average is the most stable view. Regions overlap because one trip can include several, so they do not add up exactly to the totals above.
| Destination (air only) | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 4-year average | 2025, treatment as one purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mexico | 116,000 | 80,000 | 180,000 | 126,000 | 125,000 | 210,000 |
| South America | 64,000 | 70,000 | 86,000 | 102,000 | 81,000 | 277,000 |
| Caribbean | 79,000 | 64,000 | 67,000 | 26,000 | 59,000 | 52,000 |
| Asia | 54,000 | 33,000 | 80,000 | 53,000 | 55,000 | 223,000 |
| Central America | 35,000 | 42,000 | 47,000 | 50,000 | 43,000 | 146,000 |
| Europe | 31,000 | 40,000 | 45,000 | 48,000 | 41,000 | 144,000 |
| Middle East | 35,000 | 46,000 | 30,000 | 42,000 | 38,000 | 67,000 |
| Africa | 6,000 | 13,000 | 4,000 | 20,000 | 11,000 | 36,000 |
| Canada | 3,000 | 9,000 | 5,000 | 11,000 | 7,000 | 16,000 |
| Oceania | 1,000 | 4,000 | 3,000 | 2,000 | 3,000 | 3,000 |
Mexico ranks first on the four-year average, but its yearly figures need care. The 2025 Mexico percentage implies about 69 survey respondents, and the 2024 jump to 1.3% implies about 87. The 2025 sampling margin is about ±30,000 trips for Mexico and ±20,000 for South America, so the ranges overlap and that single year does not settle their order. Those margins use a simple formula, and true margins are wider.
South America has the highest rate: 2.4% of air travelers there went mainly for treatment, and 6.5% listed it as one purpose, about 1 trip in 15. When counting any trip that included treatment, South America and Asia both exceed Mexico by air. The annual tables do not separate Colombia, Costa Rica, Thailand or Turkey, so no ranking inside those regions is possible here.
Mexico's lead appears in other sources that include land travel. In a 2016 CDC-led survey it was 41% of 705 medical trips, followed by Colombia at 6% and Canada at 4%.
Monterrey: a striking number on a small sample
In NTTO's 2025 Mexico table, 10.6% of travelers to Monterrey went mainly for treatment, compared with 0.4% for Cancún. Multiplied out, that is about a third of all estimated medical air trips to Mexico. It does not hold up as a stable finding:
| Year | Monterrey travelers answering | Treatment as main purpose, % | Estimated trips | Share of estimated Mexico trips |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 316 | 6.7 | ≈16,000 | 13% |
| 2023 | 355 | 1.9 | ≈5,000 | 7% |
| 2024 | 394 | 4.0 | ≈13,000 | 7% |
| 2025 | 295 | 10.6 | ≈41,000 | 33% |
The 2025 figure implies about 31 respondents, and the 2025 sampling margin is about ±3.5 points. Across all four years Monterrey is about 15% of estimated Mexico trips. Monterrey had the highest rate of any listed Mexican city in all four years, but the one-third share should not be cited as a settled fact. No source we found explains the pattern. Tijuana is not a listed city in these tables.
What they have done: dental first, and a 10-year-old data gap
The only population survey of procedures is Stoney et al., published in 2021 by CDC authors using 2016 data. It recorded 540 procedures among 517 people who traveled for pre-planned care.
| What respondents had done abroad | Count | Share of 540 |
|---|---|---|
| Dental work | 299 | 55% |
| Unspecified procedure | 108 | 20% |
| Medical treatment for an illness | 35 | 6% |
| Cosmetic surgery | 18 | 3% |
| Organ transplant | 10 | 2% |
| Orthopedic surgery | 9 | 2% |
| Bariatric (weight-loss) surgery | 1 | Under 1% |
Dental work leads clearly. The rest of the order is weak, because the smaller rows rest on a handful of people. The survey has serious limits:
- It covered 10 states and Puerto Rico, chosen for their interest in the topic and their agreement to take part.
- It estimated 1.32% of adults (95% CI 1.00–1.64), about 1.13 million people, in those places only. It should not be scaled up to a national figure.
- One procedure in five is unspecified, and the authors say the categories were not comprehensive.
What is unknown: we found no national breakdown of procedures since 2016. Hair transplants had no category, so they were not measured, which is different from being rare. Current numbers for hair, cosmetic and weight-loss surgery abroad are not available from any population survey we found.
Who goes
The same study compared groups using prevalence ratios. A ratio of 2 means medical travel was twice as common in that group. These are ratios of prevalence, not odds, and the paper gives one for each characteristic without reporting an adjustment for the others.
| Group, compared with | Prevalence ratio (95% CI) | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Hispanic or non-white, vs. white non-Hispanic | 3.97 (2.48–6.32) | About 4 times as common |
| No health plan, vs. has a plan | 2.70 (1.69–4.34) | About 2.7 times as common |
| Currently working, vs. retired | 2.46 (1.40–4.29) | About 2.5 times as common |
| Skipped a doctor because of cost, vs. did not | 2.39 (1.48–3.87) | About 2.4 times as common |
| Under 4 years of college, vs. 4 or more | 1.72 (1.14–2.59) | About 1.7 times as common |
| Good or better health, vs. fair or poorer | 0.52 (0.31–0.92) | About half as common |
Differences by income, age and sex were not statistically significant. "Hispanic or non-white" is one combined group in the paper, so it does not show a result for any single ethnic group. The survey did not record birthplace or immigration status, so it cannot say how much of this travel is people returning to a country of origin.
Claims that don't add up
Large numbers circulate in this field, usually without a published method. We tested two of them against official data.
Three million dental tourists in Los Algodones
A 2026 report by Medical Tourism Corporation says "more than 3 million dental tourists" visit Los Algodones each year, without giving a year or source for that number. The town sits beside the Andrade port of entry. Federal border data show 1,752,275 people entered the U.S. at Andrade in 2024 and 1,744,609 in 2025, on foot or as vehicle passengers. That covers every nationality and every reason for crossing. The claim is about 1.7 times the entire count.
The same report also lists about 330,000 patients, and its $0.58 billion market size roughly equals that number times $1,740 per patient. That lower figure would be about 19% of 2024 crossings. The report's "6,000+" daily peak also resembles total port traffic: all crossings averaged about 5,500 a day from November 2025 through April 2026.
Two cautions apply. Crossing data count entries, not patients, and a patient could return through a different port. So this is a strong check rather than absolute proof.
Baja California's $3 billion
A UC San Diego USMEX meeting summary says it is estimated that 2.6 million medical visitors generated $3 billion in economic impact in Baja California in 2023, with 83% from the United States. It does not state the source. BEA's figure for U.S. health-related travel spending in all of Mexico was $0.22 billion in 2022, 36.5% of the world total. One state's claim is about 14 times the national figure.
That comparison needs context. The years differ, and "economic impact" can be a broader measure than direct spending. The summary also reports average spending of 8,949.30 pesos per trip. Across 2.6 million visitors that is about $1.3 billion at the IRS 2023 average rate, or about $505 a trip (our calculation). That is under half the headline number, and in our view a figure that size looks more like routine care than surgery.
Why the numbers differ
- Claims likely count more than procedures. Neither source defines its visitors, but pharmacy purchases and routine visits are common at the border. In a 2008 survey of 1,405 adults in Texas border counties, 43.3% had bought medication in Mexico in the past year, 36.9% had seen a doctor, 24.2% a dentist and 4.0% had inpatient care. The Baja summary also says demand comes mainly from Mexican-American visitors, Spanish speakers and the 90,000 people it calls a floating population between Tijuana and San Diego.
- Official statistics may miss land patients. BEA's Mexico number is modeled, not measured. BEA says its Mexico and Canada estimates are based on a comparison group of countries, and that data on health travelers are thin. So $0.22 billion is a weak benchmark, and the 36.5% share is not independent proof of Mexico's lead.
Neither side has measured land patients. The fair conclusion is that the real number is unknown, not that the low figure is right. A claim can still fail a simple test, as the Andrade one does. The same applies to the widely repeated 1.4 million Americans a year, attributed to Patients Beyond Borders in 2016. The article shows no method. Our data neither confirm nor rule it out.
South Korea: a real count, but not a surgery count
Medical Korea reports 173,363 U.S. patients in 2025, up from 101,733 in 2024 and 58,358 in 2019. That is about 70% in one year and nearly triple since 2019. The count excludes repeat treatments and visits, and it covers foreigners who are neither registered residents nor on Korean national insurance.
This is not the same thing as planned surgery abroad, for two reasons.
- The care mix. For American patients in 2024, the Health Ministry listed dermatology 33.0%, integrated internal medicine 14.3% and health screening 9.7%. It did not publish the other departments, so the American share for plastic surgery is unknown. No 2025 mix for Americans was published in what we reviewed. For all nationalities in 2025, dermatology was 62.9% and plastic surgery 11.2%.
- The trip purpose. SIAT shows only about 53,000 main-purpose trips to all of Asia in 2025. Even if every one went to Korea, that is about 31% of Korea's count. So most U.S. patients there were probably on trips made mainly for another reason. This is our inference, not a measured result. The same check was much looser in 2024, about 80,000 trips against 101,733 patients, because the Asia figure is noisy.
How many of these patients are Korean Americans is not published.
Method
- Trip estimates: "Health Treatment" percentages from Tables 14 (main purpose) and 15 (all purposes) of the SIAT annual outbound workbooks, multiplied by the row "Total U.S. Travelers (est. 000s)" in Table 1 of the same workbook. Totals add the All Overseas, Mexico and Canada files. The Canada base is footnoted to Statistics Canada, and NTTO says outbound results are weighted to Homeland Security departure data.
- Uncertainty: rounding ranges use ±0.05 points. Sampling margins are simple 95% binomial calculations from the published respondent counts. They ignore survey weighting, so true margins are wider. Implied respondent counts are percentage times respondents and are approximate.
- Border data: pedestrians plus personal vehicle passengers at Andrade, from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, inbound to the U.S.
- Clinic data: we found no clinic that publishes a verifiable annual count of U.S. patients, so no clinic-reported totals are used here.
- Disclosure: xcuro matches patients with clinics abroad, so we have a commercial interest in this market. All data here come from public sources, retrieved November 2, 2026.
How to cite this page
xcuro editorial team. "How Many Americans Really Travel Abroad for Medical Care? 2026 Data." xcuro, November 2026. https://xcuro.com/p/how-many-americans-travel-abroad-for-medical-care/
Please describe the trip counts as xcuro estimates based on NTTO survey data, say they cover air travel only, and credit the percentages to NTTO. Please keep "trips" rather than "people."
If you are weighing treatment abroad yourself, our procedure guides cover what is known about specific treatments.
FAQ
How many Americans travel abroad for medical care each year?
No exact national count exists. xcuro estimates about 470,000 U.S. air trips in 2025 had treatment as the main purpose, within a rough range of 400,000 to 550,000, and about 1.12 million included treatment as one purpose. These are trips, not people, and land crossings into Mexico are not included.
Do these numbers include people who drive or walk into Mexico?
No. The source is a survey of air travelers. U.S. trips to Mexico totaled 39.9 million in 2024, and about 13.8 million were by air. We found no national survey of land trips for care.
Where do most Americans go for medical care abroad?
Mexico leads on the four-year average of air trips, at about 125,000 main-purpose trips a year, followed by South America at about 81,000. It also led a 2016 CDC-led survey at 41% of trips. Single-year rankings are unreliable because Mexico's sample is small.
What procedure do Americans most often travel abroad for?
Dental work, at 55% of procedures in the only population survey, which used 2016 data from 10 states and Puerto Rico. No national breakdown has been published since, and hair transplants were not measured.
Do 3 million dental tourists really visit Los Algodones each year?
The claim does not fit federal border data. About 1.75 million people of all nationalities entered the U.S. at the nearby Andrade port in 2024, for any reason. The report making the 3 million claim also lists about 330,000 patients, a figure that fits those crossings far better.
Why do industry numbers differ so much from official numbers?
They likely measure different things. Visitor claims may include pharmacy trips and routine care, and they rarely publish a method. Official figures are also weak here: the air survey misses land travel, and BEA's Mexico figure is modeled from comparison countries.
Do clinics publish how many U.S. patients they treat?
We found no clinic that publishes a verifiable annual count of U.S. patients. Numbers on clinic websites are self-reported and generally cannot be checked.
Sources
All sources accessed November 2, 2026.
- Survey of International Air Travelers (SIAT): program page and annual outbound workbooks, 2022-2025 — National Travel and Tourism Office, U.S. Department of Commerce
- SIAT 2025 Annual B1, All Overseas, Outbound — National Travel and Tourism Office
- SIAT 2025 Annual B1, Mexico, Outbound — National Travel and Tourism Office
- SIAT 2025 Annual B1, Canada, Outbound — National Travel and Tourism Office
- SIAT 2025 Annual B2, All Overseas (destinations), Outbound — National Travel and Tourism Office
- SIAT 2025 Annual B2, Mexico (destinations), Outbound — National Travel and Tourism Office
- U.S. Outbound Travelers Characteristics 2024 — National Travel and Tourism Office
- Annual Update of the U.S. International Transactions Accounts (Survey of Current Business, July 2020) — U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
- Components of International Travel Trade (2022 data) — National Travel and Tourism Office, from Bureau of Economic Analysis data
- Border Crossing Entry Data (Andrade, California) — U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics
- Population-based surveillance of medical tourism among U.S. residents from 11 states and territories (Stoney et al., 2021) — Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, via PubMed Central
- Cross-Border Utilization of Health Care: Evidence from a Population-Based Study in South Texas (Su et al., 2011) — Health Services Research, via PubMed Central
- Statistics on international patients, by country — Medical Korea / Korea Health Industry Development Institute
- 2024 foreign patient results (press release, in Korean) — Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea
- Report on 2025 foreign patient figures (in Korean) — Herald, citing the Ministry of Health and Welfare
- Takeaways from meeting: Medical tourism, challenges and opportunities (May 28, 2024) — USMEX, UC San Diego, CaliBaja Moving Forward Together
- Los Algodones (Molar City) Dental Tourism Report (2026) — Medical Tourism Corporation
- 1.4 Million Americans Will Go Abroad for Medical Care This Year. Should You? (2016) — The Fiscal Times
- Yearly average currency exchange rates — U.S. Internal Revenue Service