Health insurance requirements by destination
There is no general answer to "do I need health insurance abroad". There is only what the country you are moving to actually asks for — and no two below ask for the same thing. Start with yours.
Every coloured country is a page. Cyprus, Qatar and Singapore carry dots — real countries, small pixels. Click any of them.
Portugal
Asks for insurance twice.
Schengen cover for the consulate, full private cover for the residency appointment — and the policy that satisfies the first does not always satisfy the second.
Read the rule
Mexico
Never asks at all.
No stage of residency wants to see a policy. Which is why so many people arrive covered by nothing, and only meet the condition years later, at an IMSS counter.
Read the ruleThailand
Asks a different question per visa.
One route sets a baht minimum, another a dollar one, a third asks nothing. Which applies to you was settled when you chose the route — usually for unrelated reasons.
Read the ruleIndonesia
Compels you into a scheme that misses the flight out.
The national scheme is presented as mandatory and does not cover medical evacuation — and for the cases that matter most, the destination is Singapore.
Read the ruleSpain
Does not name a sum. Names a shape.
An insurer authorised in Spain, cover equivalent to the public system, and no copayments. The good international policy you already hold almost certainly fails one.
Read the ruleGermany
One decision, and one chance at it.
Cover is compulsory for everyone, and the move from statutory to private is close to irreversible — a choice usually made in week two, in a second language.
Read the ruleUnited Arab Emirates
Someone already chose your cover.
Your employer must insure you as a condition of your residence permit. The duty does not automatically run to your family, and that is where this goes wrong.
Read the ruleNetherlands
The risk here is a clock.
Four months to take out Dutch cover, an existing foreign policy is not an exemption, and the premiums are backdated to the day you arrived.
Read the ruleUnited States
The country your policy quietly left out.
No national system to fall into, and the one country insurers price as a separate world. "Worldwide excluding USA" is a standard tier — and probably the one you hold.
Read the ruleFrance
Eligible and covered are different dates.
Three months of residence makes you eligible for PUMA. Holding the card that makes it usable can take most of a year, and the gap is yours to cover.
Read the ruleAustralia
Here it follows your passport.
Two people on the same visa, in the same job, can hold different entitlements — because reciprocal agreements attach to nationality, not to residence.
Read the ruleCosta Rica
You cannot opt out.
CAJA is a condition of residency, private cover does not replace it, and the contribution is a share of your income rather than a premium.
Read the ruleCyprus
Universal, but perhaps not for you.
GESY eligibility follows contributions rather than residence — so the retiree it is marketed to is often the person it will not take.
Read the ruleQatar
The Gulf state that covers your family.
Employers must fund cover for the employee and dependants, before the permit issues. Its neighbours do not — and people carry the wrong assumption across the border.
Read the ruleSaudi Arabia
A gap is not a letter. It is a failed transaction.
Your family is usually your own cost, and cover is checked against a central register in real time when a residency transaction is attempted.
Read the rule
Malaysia
Here your health decides your visa.
MM2H wants a minimum sum held throughout and a medical before approval, and assesses older applicants case by case. Insurability gates the move.
Read the rulePhilippines
Compulsory, and small.
PhilHealth is required and pays part of a bill rather than the whole of one — and neither it nor a typical HMO moves a patient between islands.
Read the ruleSwitzerland
A premium that ignores what you earn.
Per person, flat, blind to income and to your medical history — and compulsory within three months, backdated to arrival if you join on time.
Read the ruleSingapore
An excellent system. Not yours.
The subsidy schemes are for citizens and permanent residents. A work pass does not admit you, and no length of stay changes that on its own.
Read the ruleCanada
The answer changes inside the country.
There is no Canadian health plan — there are thirteen, and the wait for a new resident runs from nothing to three months depending where you land.
Read the ruleSouth Africa
They cannot refuse you. They can price the year you joined.
Open enrolment, and a late-joiner surcharge set by your age that lasts for life — with years insured abroad generally counting for nothing.
Read the ruleJapan
Compulsory, quick, and thirty per cent.
Japan compels foreign residents in rather than keeping them out. The traps are a fortnight-long registration window and a patient share people underestimate.
Read the ruleBrazil
Brazil asks nothing.
Free to every person on Brazilian soil, with no premium and no copayment. The cost is waiting — and that is all a private plan actually buys you.
Read the ruleSomewhere else? The rule is different again, and we would rather tell you what it is than sell you a policy shaped for a country you are not moving to. And if your life is not shaped like a country at all — moving constantly,registered nowhere,posted with an embassy or organisation, or sent by an employer — those pages are yours.
The same countries, by cost
Ordered by what cover actually costs.
Average annual premium for a comparable international plan, from an independent fifty-country benchmark. The number in the left column is where each country sits among all fifty — not among these.
| Rank | Country | At 24 | At 35 | At 50 | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | $12,773 | $18,765 | $22,368 | $17,969 |
| 3 | Singapore | $10,065 | $13,967 | $18,662 | $14,231 |
| 6 | Japan | $6,816 | $9,321 | $14,915 | $10,350 |
| 7 | Brazil | $7,068 | $9,596 | $13,740 | $10,135 |
| 8 | Mexico | $6,967 | $9,830 | $13,257 | $10,018 |
| 9 | Thailand | $6,895 | $9,621 | $13,047 | $9,854 |
| 10 | United Arab Emirates | $7,132 | $7,977 | $13,931 | $9,680 |
| 14 | Spain | $6,338 | $8,949 | $11,702 | $8,996 |
| 15 | Switzerland | $6,392 | $8,017 | $12,328 | $8,912 |
| 16 | Australia | $6,035 | $8,451 | $11,135 | $8,540 |
| 18 | Qatar | $6,463 | $6,553 | $12,052 | $8,356 |
| 21 | Cyprus | $5,730 | $8,068 | $10,748 | $8,182 |
| 22 | France | $5,625 | $7,837 | $10,554 | $8,005 |
| 23 | Indonesia | $5,604 | $7,932 | $10,291 | $7,942 |
| 25 | Canada | $5,343 | $7,573 | $10,580 | $7,832 |
| 27 | Portugal | $5,485 | $7,686 | $10,184 | $7,785 |
| 32 | Saudi Arabia | $4,973 | $6,840 | $10,256 | $7,356 |
| 33 | Malaysia | $5,146 | $7,242 | $9,612 | $7,333 |
| 34 | Germany | $5,081 | $7,099 | $9,741 | $7,307 |
| 37 | South Africa | $5,018 | $7,122 | $9,458 | $7,199 |
| 41 | Philippines | $4,800 | $6,482 | $9,243 | $6,842 |
| 44 | Netherlands | $4,748 | $6,539 | $8,931 | $6,739 |
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