Doctors per Capita by Country 2026

Medical doctors, nursing and midwifery personnel, dentists, and pharmacists are found in varying numbers per capita around the world and are therefore more accessible in some countries than in others. Here are the data in terms of medical professionals per capita by country between the years of 2008 and 2022.

As of the most recent data, Cuba has the highest number of medical doctors per capita. In 2021, the country’s doctor per capita rating was 94.3 per 10K residents. Monaco places second with 88.9 as of 2020 and Sweden third as of 2021 with 71.5 doctors per ten thousand people.

The other countries making up the rest of the ten countries based on doctors per capita include Belgium with 62.60 (2022), Greece with 63.7 (2021), San Marino with 60.2 (2014), Portugal with 57.7 (2021), Georgia with 56.1 (2022), Austria with 55.1 (2022), and Norway with 51.7 (2021).

The five countries with the lowest number of doctors per capita are South Sudan (2020) and Sierra Leone (2022) with 0.40, Malawi with 0.49 (2022), Papua New Guinea with 0.63 (2021), and Burundi with 0.50 (2021).

While medical doctors may not have a high per capita rate in many countries around the world, the number of nursing and midwifery personnel is booming. Finland, for example, has an impressive 522 per 10K rating for these types of medical personnel. Sweden with 217 as of 2021 and Belgium with 209 as of 2020 round out the top three.

Somalia has the lowest per capita rate of nursing and midwifery personnel. The country has a rate of only 1.13 per 10K as of 2014. The Central African Republic with 1.91 (2021), Niger with 2.02 (2022), and Chad with 2.1 (2022) also have low per capita rates for this industry.

When it comes to dentists, Sweden has the highest per capita numbers with 17.7 dentists per ten thousand residents, as of 2021. San Marino with 17.5 (2018) and Cuba with 16.7 (2018) are currently in second and third places when it comes to the number of dentists per capita.

Several countries tie for last place in the dentist per capita race. Niger, Chad, Burundi, Sierra Leone, and Liberia all have a dentist per capita rating of 0.1, as of 2022 (with the exception of Burundi whose most recent data available is for the year 2018).

The final group of medical professionals to examine are pharmacists. Malta is the country with the highest number of pharmacists per 10K with 25.5 as of 2021. The country beats out Monaco, which has a rating of 24.1 as of 2020. Guinea-Bissau and Madagascar tie for last place with a pharmacist per capita rate of 0.1 each.