Top 100 Countries by Life Expectancy, 2025: From Longest to Shortest

by admin December 10, 2025 7714 47 min read

Population · Life Expectancy

Life expectancy in 2025: who lives longest — and how far above the global norm?

This ranking looks at life expectancy at birth — the average number of years a newborn is expected to live if current mortality patterns stay constant. It is not a prediction for any individual, but a synthetic summary of mortality across all ages.

Using the latest United Nations 2024 estimates by country (total, female and male), harmonised to a 2025 update, we order countries and territories from the longest-lived to the shortest-lived. The global picture is one of steady improvement: worldwide life expectancy has rebounded after COVID-19 and now exceeds 76 years for women and 71 years for men, but large gaps remain between high-income and lower-income regions.

The table below highlights the Top 25 jurisdictions. Many of them are small, high-income states or territories combining low infant mortality, strong cardiovascular prevention, and broadly accessible healthcare.

Table 1. Top 25 countries and territories by life expectancy at birth, 2025 (UN 2024 estimates, years)

Rank	Country / territory	Life expectancy (years)
1	Monaco	86.5
2	San Marino	85.8
3	Hong Kong	85.6
4	Japan	84.8
5	South Korea	84.4
6	Saint Barthelemy	84.4
7	French Polynesia	84.2
8	Andorra	84.2
9	Switzerland	84.1
10	Australia	84.1
11	Italy	83.9
12	Singapore	83.9
13	Spain	83.8
14	Liechtenstein	83.8
15	Reunion	83.7
16	Gibraltar	83.6
17	Malta	83.5
18	France	83.5
19	Norway	83.5
20	Sweden	83.4
21	Guernsey	83.4
22	Macau	83.2
23	Vatican City	83.1
24	United Arab Emirates	83.1
25	Iceland	83.0

Note: life expectancy at birth, total (both sexes combined), rounded to one decimal place. Values are based on UN World Population Prospects 2024 and related UN/World Bank updates.

Figure 1. Life expectancy at birth for the Top 25 countries and territories (years)

Bars show UN 2024 life expectancy at birth for the Top 25 entries. Values are rounded and harmonised for international comparability; small differences between sources are possible.

From Monaco to Aruba: the structure of the Top 100

When we extend the view from the Top 25 to the Top 100 countries and territories, a clear hierarchy emerges. At the top sit small, very high-income jurisdictions with exceptionally low mortality at older ages. They are followed by a broad group of advanced economies — largely in Western Europe, North America and advanced Asia — and then a long tail of upper-middle-income countries that have converged rapidly on high-income life expectancy over the past three decades.

By the time we reach rank 100 in this table, life expectancy is still around 76–77 years. That means roughly half the world’s population now lives in countries where life expectancy is at least the level that Western Europe had in the early 1990s.

The Top 100 ranking uses UN 2024 life expectancy at birth (total, female, male) as compiled by UN and World Bank statistical databases. The column “Female vs male” in the table below shows the gender pattern behind each total value: in almost all cases women live longer than men, often by 3–6 years, reflecting differences in both biological risks and behavioural factors such as smoking, alcohol and injury rates.

Table 2. Top 100 countries and territories by life expectancy at birth, 2025 (UN 2024 estimates; total and female vs male, years)

Rank & country	Life expectancy, total (years)	Female vs male (years)
1Monaco	86.5	88.6 vs 84.6
2San Marino	85.8	87.2 vs 84.3
3Hong Kong	85.6	88.3 vs 83.0
4Japan	84.8	87.9 vs 81.8
5South Korea	84.4	87.3 vs 81.3
6Saint Barthelemy	84.4	86.9 vs 81.6
7French Polynesia	84.2	86.6 vs 81.9
8Andorra	84.2	86.2 vs 82.3
9Switzerland	84.1	86.0 vs 82.2
10Australia	84.1	85.5 vs 82.3
11Italy	83.9	85.9 vs 81.8
12Singapore	83.9	86.4 vs 81.4
13Spain	83.8	86.4 vs 81.1
14Liechtenstein	83.8	85.4 vs 82.0
15Reunion	83.7	86.5 vs 80.7
16Gibraltar	83.6	86.2 vs 81.0
17Malta	83.5	85.4 vs 81.5
18France	83.5	86.2 vs 80.6
19Norway	83.5	85.0 vs 81.9
20Sweden	83.4	85.2 vs 81.7
21Guernsey	83.4	85.6 vs 81.2
22Macau	83.2	85.3 vs 81.0
23Vatican City	83.1	85.2 vs 81.0
24United Arab Emirates	83.1	84.3 vs 82.2
25Iceland	83.0	84.5 vs 81.6
26Martinique	82.7	85.7 vs 79.5
27Israel	82.7	84.7 vs 80.7
28Canada	82.7	84.9 vs 80.5
29Ireland	82.6	84.6 vs 80.6
30Portugal	82.5	85.3 vs 79.7
31Qatar	82.5	83.5 vs 81.8
32Bermuda	82.5	85.9 vs 79.1
33Luxembourg	82.4	83.9 vs 80.8
34Netherlands	82.3	83.8 vs 80.7
35Belgium	82.3	84.5 vs 80.1
36New Zealand	82.2	83.9 vs 80.6
37Guadeloupe	82.2	85.7 vs 78.3
38Austria	82.1	84.5 vs 79.8
39Denmark	82.1	84.0 vs 80.2
40Finland	82.1	84.8 vs 79.4
41Greece	82.0	84.5 vs 79.5
42Puerto Rico	81.9	85.4 vs 78.3
43Cyprus	81.8	83.8 vs 79.8
44Slovenia	81.8	84.5 vs 79.1
45Germany	81.5	83.9 vs 79.2
46United Kingdom	81.5	83.3 vs 79.5
47Bahrain	81.4	82.1 vs 80.8
48Chile	81.4	83.2 vs 79.5
49Maldives	81.3	83.0 vs 80.0
50Isle of Man	81.1	83.2 vs 79.0
51Costa Rica	81.0	83.6 vs 78.4
52Kuwait	80.6	82.0 vs 79.5
53Cayman Islands	80.5	83.0 vs 78.2
54Saint Martin	80.4	84.0 vs 77.0
55Faroe Islands	80.4	82.7 vs 78.4
56Oman	80.3	82.0 vs 78.7
57Czechia	80.0	82.8 vs 77.2
58Jersey	79.8	81.9 vs 77.9
59Albania	79.8	81.6 vs 77.9
60Panama	79.8	82.7 vs 76.9
61Anguilla	79.5	82.8 vs 76.2
62United States	79.5	82.0 vs 77.0
63Falkland Islands	79.4	81.3 vs 77.4
64Estonia	79.3	83.2 vs 75.1
65Saudi Arabia	79.0	81.3 vs 77.3
66Northern Mariana Islands	79.0	80.9 vs 77.3
67New Caledonia	78.9	81.4 vs 76.5
68Poland	78.8	82.5 vs 75.1
69Croatia	78.8	81.8 vs 75.6
70Slovakia	78.5	81.7 vs 75.2
71Uruguay	78.3	82.0 vs 74.4
72Cuba	78.3	80.7 vs 75.9
73Turks and Caicos Islands	78.2	80.5 vs 76.0
74Bosnia and Herzegovina	78.0	81.1 vs 74.7
75China	78.0	81.0 vs 75.3
76Jordan	78.0	80.3 vs 75.9
77Lebanon	78.0	79.9 vs 75.9
78Peru	77.9	80.3 vs 75.6
79Colombia	77.9	80.6 vs 75.2
80Iran	77.8	79.8 vs 76.0
81Antigua and Barbuda	77.8	80.5 vs 74.7
82Sri Lanka	77.7	80.8 vs 74.5
83Ecuador	77.6	80.3 vs 74.9
84Argentina	77.5	80.0 vs 75.0
85North Macedonia	77.5	79.7 vs 75.3
86British Virgin Islands	77.4	80.2 vs 74.7
87Turkey	77.4	80.3 vs 74.6
88Guam	77.4	81.6 vs 73.7
89Montenegro	77.3	80.5 vs 73.9
90Hungary	77.2	80.3 vs 73.9
91French Guiana	77.2	80.2 vs 74.3
92Tokelau	77.2	79.0 vs 75.1
93Curacao	77.0	81.0 vs 72.7
94Serbia	76.9	80.2 vs 73.7
95Saint Pierre and Miquelon	76.9	81.6 vs 73.0
96Malaysia	76.8	79.5 vs 74.5
97Tunisia	76.7	79.3 vs 74.1
98Thailand	76.6	81.0 vs 72.3
99Sint Maarten	76.5	79.7 vs 73.8
100Aruba	76.5	78.9 vs 73.8

Notes: life expectancy at birth in years, rounded to one decimal place. “Female vs male” shows the UN 2024 estimates by sex; the gender gap can be read as the difference between the two values. Small territories are included when UN/World Bank publish separate series.

Life expectancy and health spending: a strong, but imperfect, correlation

Higher health expenditure per capita is generally associated with longer lives: countries that invest more — particularly in primary care, prevention and financial protection — tend to achieve lower mortality at most ages. But the relationship is not linear. Some systems convert spending into health much more efficiently than others.

The scatter plot below compares life expectancy with total health spending per person (PPP, international dollars) for a selection of large economies. The United States stands out as a high-spending, middling-outcome outlier, while places like South Korea, Spain and Japan achieve very high life expectancy with substantially lower spending levels.

Figure 2. Life expectancy at birth (UN 2024, years) vs total health expenditure per capita (WHO/World Bank, PPP international dollars, latest 2022–2023 values). Spending values are rounded to the nearest hundred and used for comparative illustration only.

What this life expectancy ranking means for policy and societies

The 2025 life expectancy ranking summarises decades of demographic and health transitions. Countries clustered at the top have broadly achieved two things: they have made premature death rare and they have compressed most mortality into relatively old ages. This is the result of long-running investments in maternal and child health, cardiovascular prevention, cancer screening and treatment, safer transport and workplaces, and broad financial access to care.

The Top 100 table also shows that many upper-middle-income countries now attain life expectancy in the high 70s or low 80s, despite having far lower health spending per person than the richest OECD members. Their challenge is to avoid stagnation: as non-communicable diseases, obesity and mental-health conditions rise, gains from basic infectious-disease control are no longer enough to push life expectancy higher.

On the other side, some high-spending systems struggle to translate resources into longer lives. The United States is the clearest example: per-capita health expenditure is far above the OECD average, yet life expectancy lags behind many European and Asian peers. The scatter plot in Part 2 shows that system design, prevention and equity are as important as the spending level itself.

Key policy takeaways from the 2025 life expectancy ranking

Spending is necessary, but not sufficient. Countries that combine higher per-capita health expenditure with strong primary care, clear benefits packages, and financial protection see the biggest longevity gains.
Prevention across the life course matters. Long-lived countries intervene early: vaccination, tobacco and alcohol control, cardiovascular risk management and road safety all translate into fewer deaths before age 70.
Gender gaps remain substantial. In most Top 100 countries women live several years longer than men, driven by differences in injuries, cardiovascular disease, and risk behaviours. Men’s health needs to be addressed explicitly in policy design.
Shocks can erase years of progress. COVID-19, opioid crises and “deaths of despair” show that life expectancy can fall sharply when health systems and social protections are weak.
Life expectancy is a bridge indicator. It links to many other StatRanker metrics: health expenditure per capita, health expenditure as a share of GDP, quality of care, income inequality and labour-market conditions. No single policy lever explains the ranking.

This ranking is intended for analytical and comparative purposes. For programme design or evaluation, policymakers should always consult the underlying micro-data and national vital statistics, not only headline life expectancy figures.

Primary data sources and technical notes

UN World Population Prospects 2024 – Life expectancy at birth. Country-level series of life expectancy at birth (total, female, male) used to derive the 2025 ranking and gender breakdowns.
https://population.un.org/wpp/
World Bank World Development Indicators – Life expectancy indicators. Cross-country database including “Life expectancy at birth, total (years)” and the corresponding male/female series used for consistency checks.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN
WorldPopulationReview – Life Expectancy by Country 2025. Compiled table of UN 2024 life expectancy estimates by country and territory (total, female, male), used as a convenient starting point for the Top 100 ranking presented here.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/life-expectancy-by-country
WHO Global Health Expenditure Database / World Bank – Total health spending per person. PPP-adjusted health expenditure per capita used to position countries in the scatter chart (Figure 2), with values rounded to broad bands.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.PP.CD
Our World in Data – Total health spending per person. Processed series combining WHO and World Bank data for international comparison of health expenditure per capita (current international dollars, PPP).
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-healthcare-expenditure-per-capita
OECD Health at a Glance 2025 – Health expenditure per capita. Detailed benchmark of OECD countries’ per-capita health spending, used to validate spending levels for high-income economies in Figure 2.
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/health-at-a-glance-2025

All figures in the article are latest available values as of late 2025 (typically 2022–2024), harmonised for comparability. Minor discrepancies between sources are possible and do not materially affect the country ordering within the Top 100.

Download data & charts

Life expectancy Top 100 – data tables and chart images (ZIP)

Download the full asset pack for the article “Top 100 Countries by Life Expectancy, 2025: From Longest to Shortest”. The archive includes ready-to-use CSV tables and PNG charts for further analysis or presentation.

life_expectancy_top25_2025.csv – Top 25 countries/territories, rank + total life expectancy.
life_expectancy_top100_gender_2025.csv – full Top 100 with female, male and gender gap.
life_expectancy_vs_health_spending_2025.csv – data for the life expectancy vs health spending scatter.
life_expectancy_top25_bar_chart.png – bar chart of Top 25 life expectancy values.
life_expectancy_vs_spending_scatter.png – scatter plot of life expectancy vs health expenditure per capita.

📥 Download ZIP (life_expectancy_top100_assets.zip)

Format: CSV tables + PNG charts · Source: UN WPP 2024, World Bank, WHO (harmonised for 2025 comparison).