TOP 10 Countries with Lowest Infant Mortality Rate (2025)

by admin November 18, 2025 1582 15 min read

Global leaders in infant survival: where infant mortality is lowest in 2025

Infant mortality – the number of babies dying before their first birthday per 1,000 live births – is one of the most sensitive indicators of a country’s health system, social protection and overall development. Since 1990, the world has seen a sharp decline in infant deaths, yet the gap between the best-performing countries and the global average remains large.

This article uses the latest available estimates from the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME), the World Bank’s World Development Indicators, WHO’s Global Health Observatory and CIA World Factbook data (2024 estimates) to build a 2025 snapshot of the Top 10 countries with the lowest infant mortality rates. For each country we look at the current rate and, using longer time series, illustrate how far infant mortality has fallen since 1990.

How the ranking is constructed

Metric. Infant mortality rate (IMR), deaths under age 1 per 1,000 live births in a given year. Data are primarily from UN IGME and the World Bank’s indicator SP.DYN.IMRT.IN, cross-checked with CIA World Factbook estimates.
Reference year. CIA World Factbook 2024 estimates are treated as the latest available “2025 snapshot” for country rankings. Longer-term trends use World Bank / UN IGME series back to 1990.
Geographic coverage. Sovereign states and selected high-income territories (such as Monaco and Bermuda) are included where consistent time series exist.

Table 1. Top 10 countries with the lowest infant mortality rate (latest estimates, ~2024)

Indicator: infant deaths before age 1 per 1,000 live births. Values rounded; differences between sources of ±0.1–0.2 are common and do not change the ranking.

Rank	Country / territory	Infant mortality (deaths per 1,000 live births)
1	Singapore	1.5
2	Slovenia	1.5
3	Iceland	1.6
4	Monaco	1.7
5	Norway	1.8
6	Japan	1.9
7	Belarus	2.1
8	Bermuda	2.1
9	Finland	2.1
10	Sweden	2.3

All of the leaders are high-income economies with long-standing investments in primary health care, maternal and newborn services and social protection. Singapore and Slovenia sit at the top with around 1.5 infant deaths per 1,000 live births – more than 20 times lower than the current global average.

Nordic countries (Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden) dominate the ranking thanks to universal coverage, strong midwifery traditions and rapid access to neonatal intensive care when complications occur. Japan and Singapore illustrate how rapid economic growth combined with targeted health reforms can compress infant mortality to extremely low levels within a few decades. Even Belarus, with a much lower GDP per capita than most peers, has converged towards the best performers through sustained investment in perinatal care and immunisation.

How far have leaders come since 1990?

The picture in Table 1 is the result of more than three decades of gradual progress. In 1990, even today’s best performers had infant mortality rates several times higher than their current levels. At the same time, the world as a whole has cut infant mortality by almost half – but from a much higher starting point.

Approximate long-term reductions (1990–2023)

Values below combine World Bank / UN IGME time series with recent CIA estimates. They are rounded and should be read as indicative of the scale of change rather than exact point estimates.

Table 2. Decline in infant mortality, 1990–2023 (selected leaders vs world average)

Country / region	1990 → 2023 (deaths per 1,000)	Reduction 1990–2023
Singapore	≈ 6.2 → 1.5	≈ −76%
Slovenia	≈ 8.8 → 1.5	≈ −83%
Sweden	≈ 5.9 → 1.8	≈ −69%
Norway	≈ 7.0 → 1.9	≈ −73%
World (average)	≈ 65.0 → 34.0	≈ −48%

The numbers highlight two important points. First, high-income leaders have already reduced infant mortality by roughly three-quarters since 1990, and in some cases by more than 80%. Second, even after a nearly 50% reduction, the global average remains far above the levels seen in the top 10.

What do the best performers have in common?

Although their health systems and financing models differ, leading countries share a set of structural features that consistently show up in comparative studies:

Universal or near-universal coverage of antenatal, delivery and postnatal care, with very low financial barriers at the point of use.
High-quality obstetric and neonatal care, including timely Caesarean sections, neonatal intensive care units and strong referral systems for high-risk pregnancies.
Robust vaccination programmes that sharply reduce deaths from common childhood infections.
Favorable social determinants of health: low extreme poverty, high female education, good water and sanitation and generous parental leave policies.

Importantly, these elements are not limited to hospitals. Community-based midwifery, home visits by nurses, breastfeeding support and early screening for congenital conditions all reduce infant deaths. In the Nordic countries, for example, continuity of care from pregnancy through the child’s first year is a central design principle, supported by integrated electronic health records and strong primary care.

Visualising gaps and convergence

Charts below summarise the numerical story: very low infant mortality in the top 10, and a long but steady decline over three decades for leaders compared with the global average. Even among high-performing countries, however, small differences persist, reflecting variations in perinatal care, data definitions and social conditions.

Chart 1. Infant mortality in the Top 10 countries (latest estimates, ~2024)

All rates are deaths under age 1 per 1,000 live births. Bars cluster between 1.5 and 2.3, while the world average remains above 30.

Chart 2. Infant mortality trends, 1990–2023 (Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden vs world average)

Leaders started the 1990s with rates around 6–9 deaths per 1,000 and converged to below 2, while the world trajectory, although improving, remains much higher.

Why gaps persist despite global progress

While the world has reduced infant mortality by almost half since 1990, progress has been highly uneven. Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South Asia continue to carry the highest burden of infant deaths, often linked to fragile health systems, high fertility, conflict, and shortages of skilled health workers. In contrast, the countries in this Top 10 list are now operating close to the “floor” of what is statistically achievable, where further gains require tackling very rare, complex and often non-preventable conditions.

Another reason gaps persist is that reductions in infant mortality come from multiple sectors working together: education (especially for girls), water and sanitation, social protection, housing and nutrition. Countries with the lowest infant mortality rates tend to have broad welfare states or strong social insurance schemes that stabilise household income and ensure access to care during pregnancy and infancy.

For policymakers in higher-mortality settings, the experience of these leaders suggests that investing in primary health care, maternal and newborn services, and social protection can deliver rapid gains. At the same time, accurate and timely data from civil registration and vital statistics systems remain essential to track progress and identify pockets of high risk within countries.

Data sources and references

Key international datasets used to compile and cross-check the figures in this article:

UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME), Child Mortality Estimates.
World Bank, World Development Indicators – “Mortality rate, infant (per 1,000 live births)” (indicator SP.DYN.IMRT.IN), accessible via data.worldbank.org.
WHO Global Health Observatory, GHO data portal (maternal, newborn and child health indicators).
UNICEF Data, Child mortality and under-five mortality.
CIA World Factbook – “Infant mortality rate” (2024 estimates), summarised in Worldostats: Infant Mortality Rate by Country (2025).
Country-level time series (e.g. Finland, Iceland, Belarus) retrieved via the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) interface to World Bank data, Infant Mortality Rate for Finland and related series.