Access to healthcare, country by country

Healthcare in Antigua and Barbuda

Health cover here is contributory and it is tied to employment rather than to residence. The Medical Benefits Act, Cap. 271, establishes the Medical Benefits Scheme and funds it by a contribution from every insured person and a matching contribution from every employer, and it borrows its definitions of "insured person", "employer" and "wages" wholesale from the Social Security Act. What the Act sets at two and one-half per cent each, the Scheme today collects at three and one-half per cent each - a divergence between the statute and the agency that administers it, visible on the Scheme's own published rates. A self-employed person pays five per cent of earnings. The Act says nothing about a person who is resident but not employed, and nothing we read entitles a newcomer to anything before they start working.

Contribution rate in the Act

2.5% employee plus 2.5% employer

Contribution rate the Scheme collects

3.5% employee plus 3.5% employer

Self-employed contribution

5% of earnings

Employed, 60 but not yet 70

2.5% employee, nothing from the employer

Employed, aged 70 and over

No contribution from either side

Low earner

Employer pays 7%, employee nothing

Health insurance as an immigration condition

A matter the officer may consider, not a requirement

Public Healthcare Access

Emergency care in Argentina cannot be refused to anyone, whatever their immigration status - that is written into the law and survived the 2025 reform intact. Everything else changed. Ordinary, non-emergency care at nationally-run establishments is now free as of right only for citizens and permanent residents; everyone else is treated against health insurance or payment. Because most Argentine public hospitals are run by provinces rather than the nation, what you actually meet at the desk varies by province.

Emergency care

Free to everyone, any statusas of 2025-05-29

Ordinary care, permanent residents

Equal terms with citizens

Ordinary care, everyone else

Insurance or prior payment

Scope of the restriction as written

Establishments administered by the national state

Private cover, reported range

USD 95-150/month for a couple, mid-tieras of 2026-09

Healthcare in Barbados

Barbados runs its public health system through the Health Services Act, and the Act does not make access depend on immigration status. What it does is let the Minister establish health services institutions and make regulations prescribing the fees to be paid for services provided at them and the terms on which those fees are to be paid. Charges are therefore a matter of subsidiary legislation, and section 10A refers to recovery of unpaid fees under the Hospital (Fees) Regulations, 1970. Separately, every person employed in insurable employment is insured under the National Insurance and Social Security Act, with no nationality condition, and a Health Service contribution sits inside that Act. For CARICOM nationals from the three enhanced cooperation partner states the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says access to primary healthcare is on the same basis as for nationals.

Does the Health Services Act condition access on immigration status

No. The Act contains no such condition

Who sets charges

The Minister, by regulations prescribing the fees to be paid for services provided at health services institutions

National Insurance coverage

All persons employed in insurable employment, with no nationality condition

Health insurance for remote workers

Required by statute - the holder must be the holder of valid health insurance for the period for which the stamp was granted

CARICOM nationals from the enhanced cooperation states

Access to primary healthcare, primary and secondary education, national insurance benefits and other social services on the same basis as nationals

Different by nationality: CARICOM full free movement (enhanced cooperation) Read them

Healthcare Access in Belize

Belize's National Health Insurance Scheme is open to foreigners on the face of the statute: section 72 of the Social Security Act makes Belizean nationals and all persons legally resident in Belize eligible to enrol, and enrolment is a matter of producing documents establishing eligibility rather than of a contribution record. Separately, anyone in insurable employment between fourteen and sixty-five is insured under the Social Security Act itself, regardless of nationality - the test is the employment, not the passport. The third layer is the newest and the narrowest: a national of Barbados, Dominica or Saint Vincent and the Grenadines admitted under the 2026 free movement Act has a statutory entitlement to emergency and primary healthcare at public facilities without discrimination on the ground of nationality.

Who may enrol in the National Health Insurance Scheme

Belizean nationals, and all persons legally resident in Belize

Contribution record needed to enrol

None stated in the Act

Who is insured under the Social Security Act

Every person over fourteen and under sixty-five in insurable employment

Nationality test for social security

None - the test is the employment

Services the Scheme covers

Primary care, hospital outpatient and inpatient care, diagnostics and laboratory, prescription drugs and biologicals

Government pays the contribution for

Indigents, and retired people whose only income is a pension or annuity not exceeding $5,000.00 a year

Entitlement for nationals under the 2026 free movement Act

Emergency and primary health care at public facilities, without discrimination on the ground of nationality

Different by nationality: CARICOM Member States Read them

Access to Healthcare

Bolivia's free public health system covers foreigners on two different footings. If an international instrument and reciprocity apply to you, you are covered on the same terms as Bolivians. If they do not, you are still covered - but only if you fall into one of five groups: pregnant women and mothers for six months after birth, women needing sexual and reproductive care, children under five, anyone over sixty, and certified disabled people. Migration status is not mentioned in either case. Entry to the system is through a first-level facility; higher levels are reached only by referral.

Cost of the public system

Free to those it covers

Foreigners covered on the same terms as Bolivians

Where an international instrument and reciprocity apply

Everyone else

Covered only within five named groups

The five groups

Pregnant women to six months after birth; women needing sexual and reproductive care; children under five; anyone over sixty; certified disabled people

Does residence status matter

The article does not mention it

Entry point

A first-level facility, compulsorily

Access to Healthcare

The Brazilian public health system is open on the basis of being a person in Brazil, not on the basis of a permit, a contribution record or a waiting period. The Constitution makes health a right of everyone and a duty of the state, the health law repeats it as universal and equal access, and the migration law removes the last doubt by guaranteeing migrants access to public health services without discrimination on grounds of nationality or migratory status. That last phrase is the operative one: it covers people whose papers are not in order. Brazil is the outlier in the region on this - Uruguay, Chile and Peru all key public cover to residence or to contributions.

Basis of access

Universal and equal, as a right of everyone

Residence permit required

No

Contributions required

No

Qualifying period

None

Irregular migratory status

Not a bar

Access to Health Care and Joining FONASA

Chile's migration law grants access to health care on equal terms with nationals to every foreigner resident in the country - and, unusually, says the same for people whose migration status is irregular. What equal terms means in practice is the ordinary Chilean system: you join FONASA, the public insurer, or an Isapre. FONASA publishes document lists for people who are not yet in the system - a residence application in progress, a contract but no Chilean ID number, a foreign pension, no papers at all - which is a fair map of how thin the entry requirements really are. The restriction to watch is elsewhere: non-contributory cash benefits need 24 months of residence first.

Right of access

Equal terms with nationals

Extends to irregular status

Yes, expressly

Public insurer

FONASA

Joining

Voluntary application

Cover while residency is pending

Available on passport plus the stamped application

Without a Chilean ID number

Possible, using the AFP's provisional identification number

Foreign pension

Converted to pesos by the Superintendencia de Pensiones, which calculates the contribution

No papers

Route via the local CESFAM, classified as lacking resources

Non-contributory cash benefits

24 months of residence first

Children

Exempt from the 24-month rule, from entry, whatever the adults' status

Access to the Health System

Enrolment in Colombia's health system is compulsory for everyone resident in the country, foreigners included - it is framed as an obligation rather than an entitlement. Which side of the system you land on depends on whether you can pay: the contributory regime if you have capacity, the subsidised one if you qualify. Separately and before any of that, most visas require you to hold a private policy covering your whole stay.

Enrolment

Compulsory for all residents

Which regime

Contributory if you can pay, subsidised if you qualify

Where you enrol

With an EPS

Private policy

Required by every V visa and some M visas

The Caja Is Not Optional: Social Security as a Condition of Keeping Residency

Costa Rica runs a single public health system through the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social, and for residents joining it is not a choice. The migration law makes affiliation a condition of renewing the residency card, for permanent and temporary residents alike, and it requires the cover to have run without interruption from the moment residency was granted - so a gap in contributions is a gap in the migration file. The directorate asks for proof of affiliation at every renewal appointment, naming the voluntary scheme and the employer's payroll slip as the usual forms. Non-residents are in a different position entirely: remote workers must carry private medical cover of at least US$50000 for the whole of the authorised stay, and nothing in the visitor rules requires any health cover at all.

Is CCSS affiliation compulsory for residents?

Yes, for permanent and temporary residents alike

When it is checked

At every renewal of the residency card

From when it must run

From the moment residency was granted, without interruption

Exceptions

To be set by regulation, not by the law itself

Private cover for remote workers

At least US$50000 of medical expenses, for the whole stay, per person

Health cover required of ordinary visitors

None found in the entry rules

Access to Healthcare

The Constitution makes public health a right of all persons and makes the State responsible for guaranteeing access, free of charge and of quality, and it says persons rather than citizens. The migration and foreigners laws then build on that. A provisional or permanent resident is placed on the same footing as a Cuban in rights and duties, with no exception for health; provisional and humanitarian residents are expressly given similar rights to health, work, social security, education, justice and family reunification as permanent residents. A non-resident foreigner is placed on the same footing as a resident in access to health, but the law adds the words that matter - in accordance with what the relevant legislation establishes - and that legislation we have not read. A provisional resident is separately required to hold contracted medical insurance.

Constitutional right

Public health, of all persons

Permanent and provisional residents

Same footing as Cuban citizens

Non-resident foreigners

Equated in access to health, subject to the relevant legislation

Medical insurance for a provisional resident

Required

Medical insurance to enter as a tourist

Not in the entry requirements we read

Medical insurance for a multiple-entry visa

Required

Medical examinations for permanent residence

Radiographic and serological

Healthcare in Dominica

Dominica's social security scheme does not reimburse you for medical care; it pays the Government to provide it. Section 27(1)(g) of the Social Security Act describes medical benefit as a periodical payment to Government for the provision of medical services and supplies for insured persons - a block grant, not an individual entitlement - and no other healthcare record here holds a scheme built that way. Who is insured turns on work, not on nationality or status: everyone over sixteen and under sixty gainfully occupied in an insurable employment is insured, and the Act says nothing about citizenship or residence permits. Contributions earned in other CARICOM states count, because the CARICOM Agreement on Social Security has the force of law here. For a national of Barbados, Belize or Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, full free movement since October 2025 adds a right of access to emergency and primary health care.

What medical benefit actually is

A payment to Government, not to the patient

Who is compulsorily insured

Over 16 and under 60, gainfully occupied in insurable employment

Contribution ceiling

12 per cent of the wage

Benefits available

Sickness, maternity, invalidity, survivors', funeral grant, age and medical benefit

CARICOM contribution portability

In force by statute

Access for nationals of Barbados, Belize and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Emergency and primary health careas of 2025-10-01

Public health estate

A 225-bed hospital, 52 health centres, two 28-bed cottage hospitals

Health insurance requirement for a visitor or a resident applicant

None found

Different by nationality: CARICOM Member States Read them

Health Cover: the Public System Follows Legal Residence, and Migration Asks for Private Insurance First

Two systems, and which one you are in depends on a piece of paper. The social-security law opens the Dominican system to all Dominicans and to legal residents, and makes the family health insurance available to Dominicans and to foreigners who have established their residence here - so lawful residence is the gate, and illegal residence is outside it. But nobody reaches that gate on arrival, because the migration regulation requires a residence applicant to buy a private policy covering health costs and repatriation before the residence exists, and requires a student to hold private insurance approved by the migration service for the whole of the course. The practical sequence is therefore private cover first, residence second, affiliation third. Contributions in the employed scheme are split seventy-thirty between employer and worker, with occupational risks wholly on the employer.

Who may be affiliated

Dominicans and legal residents

Who the family health insurance covers

Dominicans and foreigners with residence established here

Employer share of pension and health contributions

70%

Worker share

30%

Occupational-risk insurance

100% employer

Private cover during the residence application

Required

Private cover for students

Required for the whole course

Constitutional right to health

Everyone

Health Cover for Foreigners in Ecuador

Three separate things are true at once. Emergency care cannot be refused to anyone on grounds of nationality or migration status, and the Constitutional Court has since read the statute as meaning that irregular status or the absence of a visa cannot block medical attention at all. Residents have a right to the health systems and to social security, and a foreigner holding an Ecuadorian identity card can enrol in the IESS voluntarily. But the immigration rules push in the other direction: a rentista, a pensioner or a remote worker must hold private or public health insurance covering Ecuador for the whole life of the visa before it is granted.

Emergency care

Cannot be refused on grounds of nationality or migration status

Medical attention generally

Cannot be blocked by irregular status or the absence of a visaas of 2025-02-13

Voluntary IESS affiliation

Open to foreigners holding an Ecuadorian identity card

Voluntary contribution rate

17.60 per cent of the declared base

Employee contribution rate

20.60 per cent - 9.45 personal, 11.15 employer

Insurance required for an income-based visa

Yes, for the full visa period

Contribution base for a resident

The real income declared to obtain the residence

Health Cover: a Constitutional Promise to Inhabitants, and a Contributory Scheme Tied to Employment

Two systems, and only one of them has a membership. The Constitution makes the health of the inhabitants of the Republic a public good and obliges the State to give free assistance to the sick who lack resources - 'habitantes', not citizens, and not residents - which is the foundation of the public hospital network. The contributory scheme, the Instituto Salvadoreño del Seguro Social, is attached to employment rather than to nationality or status: it applies to every worker who depends on an employer, whatever the form of the relationship or how the pay is set, and the law sets no condition of nationality anywhere in it. The employer pays 7.50 per cent and the worker 3 per cent of pay for general health and occupational risks. Someone with no employer is not shut out but is not automatically in either: voluntary insurance exists, authorised by regulation, and the voluntary member pays both halves.

Who the constitutional duty names

Inhabitants of the Republic

Free public assistance

To the sick who lack resources

Social insurance trigger

Employment, not nationality or residence

Employer contribution, health and occupational risks

7.50 per cent

Worker contribution, health and occupational risks

3 per cent

Pension branch contribution

3.50 per cent

Pensioners' health contribution

6 per cent of the pension

Voluntary insurance

Available, member pays both shares

Children covered

Up to 18

Nationality condition anywhere in the Social Security Law

None

Healthcare in Grenada

Public hospital treatment in Grenada is charged, and a foreigner pays a third more. The Grenada General Hospital (Fees) Rules set a schedule of ward, surgery and dispensary charges and then provide, in rule 5, that patients who are not citizens of Grenada and who have been resident here for less than three months, or who are not in local employment, pay those fees increased by one-third. The Rules were made under an Act repealed in 1998 and survive because the repealing Act saved them until new ones are made; the amounts in them were last set in 1988. The National Insurance Scheme pays cash benefits and does not pay for treatment, so there is no contributory health cover to join.

Surcharge for a short-stay non-citizen

One-third on top of the scheduled fee

Residence that ends the surcharge

3 months

Hospital fees as scheduled

EC$5 to EC$250

Basis of the Rules in force

Saved by section 37(2) of the Grenada Hospitals Authority Act

National Insurance medical benefit

None

Sickness benefit rate

65 per cent of average insurable earnings

Employer contribution from 1 January 2026

7.25 per cent

Employee contribution from 1 January 2026

6.25 per cent

Maximum insurable earnings

EC$1,200 a week or EC$5,200 a month

Compulsory insurance age range

16 to 60

Healthcare in Guatemala

Two systems, and only one of them has a door a newcomer can walk through. Public health services rest on a constitutional right held by every inhabitant without discrimination, and the Migration Code reinforces it for particular groups - any migrant woman, documented or not, has equal access to sexual and reproductive and maternity services, and refugee applicants get access to health services from the moment they are placed in temporary residence. Contributory social security is the other system, run by the Instituto Guatemalteco de Seguridad Social, and it is reached through employment: the employer registers the worker, and a foreign worker must produce a copy of the labour ministry work permit to be registered. Nothing we read opens IGSS to a rentista, a pensioner or an investor who has no Guatemalan employer.

Public health

A constitutional right of every inhabitant

Contributory system

IGSS, reached through employment

Who registers the worker

The employer

Extra document for a foreign worker

A copy of the MINTRAB work permit

Rentista, pensioner or investor without an employer

No IGSS route found

Private health insurance

Required only of staff of international NGOs and organisations on the migrant-worker route

Migrant women

Equal access with Guatemalans, documented or not

Healthcare in Guyana: a Constitutional Right for Citizens, Outside the Part a Court Can Enforce

Article 24 of the Constitution says every citizen has the right to free medical attention and to social care in old age and disability. Two things limit it. It says citizen, not person, which is the opposite of the way the same Constitution writes the education right one chapter later. And it sits in Chapter II, the principles chapter, while article 153 lets the High Court enforce only articles 138 to 151, so there is no route to court on article 24 alone. What a foreigner working in Guyana does get is the National Insurance Scheme: every person aged between sixteen and sixty who is gainfully occupied in insurable employment is insured for life, with no nationality or residence condition anywhere in the section, and the scheme's benefits include medical care under separate regulations for sickness and for industrial injury. Nothing we read creates a health-insurance condition on a visa.

Constitutional right to free medical attention

Every citizen

Is it enforceable in the High Court

Not directly. Article 153 reaches articles 138 to 151, and article 24 is outside that range

Who is insured under the National Insurance Scheme

Every person aged sixteen or over and under sixty who is gainfully occupied in insurable employment

Nationality or residence condition for insurance

None in the section

Duration of insured status

For life, once insured

Contribution deductible for income tax

5.6% of gross salary, capped at a salary of GY$280,000 a monthas of 2026-01-01

Health insurance as a visa condition

None found

Health Care in Haiti: a Constitutional Duty Owed to Citizens, and an Employer-Paid Health Card for Workers

Haiti has no residents' health insurance scheme that a foreigner joins. What the law we read provides is two different things. The Constitution obliges the State to guarantee the right to life and health to all citizens, and separately to provide the means of protecting, maintaining and restoring their health by creating hospitals, health centres and dispensaries; article 54 then says that foreigners on Haitian territory enjoy the same protection as is accorded to Haitians, in accordance with the law. And the Labour Code attaches health provision to employment rather than to residence: every worker must hold a health card within three months of being hired, at the employer's exclusive expense, with the annual examinations carried out by the medical service of OFATMA, the office for work accident, sickness and maternity insurance; and every worker has fifteen days of paid sick leave a year on a medical certificate from the company doctor or a public health service. Access for a foreigner who is not employed is not something we could establish from any document.

Residents' health insurance a foreigner can join

None found

Health card

Compulsory within three months of hiring, at the employer's expense

Who runs the examinations

OFATMA's medical service, exclusively

Paid sick leave

Fifteen days a year

Maternity leave

Twelve weeks, or six paid by the employer

Medical certificate for the residence permit

No more than thirty days old

Health Cover in Honduras

Honduran social security runs on employment. The social security institute is a compulsory public service, and the duty that makes it work sits on the employer: every employer must register every worker who enters its service. The constitutional architecture is the same - the State, employers and workers all contribute, and the system is to be introduced gradually and progressively, by risk covered, by geography and by category of worker. That last phrase is not decorative: the law's own list of people brought in by special and progressive affiliation includes the self-employed, domestic workers, pensioners and students, and makes each one conditional on actuarial studies. A resident who is not employed in Honduras has no route into the institute that we found in writing. The right to health protection is recognised separately in the Constitution and is not the same thing as cover.

Institution

Instituto Hondureño de Seguridad Social (IHSS)

Character

A compulsory public service

Who registers you

Your employer

Contributors

The State, employers and workers

Contingencies covered

7

Non-working residents

No route found in the instruments read

Right to health protection

Recognised by the Constitution

Healthcare in Jamaica

Jamaica abolished user fees in its public health facilities in 2008, and the abolition is for Jamaicans without health insurance. The Ministry of Health says so in the same breath as it announces fee rises for everyone else: from 1 August 2018 user fees went up for non-residents, private patients and insured patients at all public health facilities, while Jamaicans who are public patients without insurance continue to be treated without charge. So a foreigner in a Jamaican public hospital pays. The second strand is the National Health Fund, which subsidises treatment for listed conditions and is open to residents rather than citizens - and here residence has a precise statutory meaning: ordinarily resident in Jamaica for periods aggregating not less than six months in the calendar year. The Fund's benefit turns on a doctor's certificate that you have one of the listed conditions, and on nothing about nationality.

Public health user fees for Jamaicans without insurance

Abolished in 2008

Public health user fees for non-residents

Chargedas of 2018-08-01

General medical visit registration

$3,000as of 2018-08-01

Specialty clinic registration

$7,500as of 2018-08-01

National Health Fund residence test

Six months in the calendar year, aggregated

Nationality test for the National Health Fund

None - the Act turns on residence

Health Care in Mexico

Mexico's entitlement is written more broadly than any other in this reference: everyone in the country without social security has a right to free public health services, medicines and supplies at the moment they need them, with no mention of nationality or immigration status. The migration law says the same thing twice over, and adds that urgent care needed to preserve life must be free and unrestricted. On top of that sits the social security institute's voluntary family health insurance, open to families in Mexico for an annual premium by age band - but it refuses anyone with a listed pre-existing condition, and it needs a population registry number, which a foreigner only gets with a residence card.

Free public health services

A right of everyone in the country who has no social security

Urgent care

Free and unrestricted, whatever the migration status

Any nationality or status condition in the law

None

Voluntary family insurance premium, ages 0-19

MXN 9,300 a yearas of 2026-03-01

Ages 50-59

MXN 14,850 a yearas of 2026-03-01

Ages 60-69

MXN 20,600 a yearas of 2026-03-01

Ages 80 and over

MXN 22,150 a yearas of 2026-03-01

Premium basis

Annual, paid in advance, per person, by age band

Cover starts

The first day of the month after joining

Pre-existing conditions

Excluded - the listed conditions make a person ineligible, not merely uncovered

Refunds

None, partial or total, in any case

What a foreigner needs first

A residence card, because the population registry number follows from it

Healthcare in Nicaragua

Nicaraguan health law is written around persons rather than citizens. The General Health Law protects the right of every person to enjoy, keep and recover their health, guarantees coverage to the whole population, and nowhere makes nationality or migration status a condition. Free treatment is a narrower promise: it is guaranteed for the vulnerable population, defined as those without the resources to meet their minimum needs for human development, with priority to mothers and children, older people and the disabled. Emergency care is owed by any establishment, public or private, for as long as a grave risk to life or health lasts. The contributory layer is separate: social-security cover through INSS is compulsory for employed resident foreigners and open voluntarily to the self-employed.

Nationality test in the health law

None

Who the law covers

Every person, for the right to health

Who gets public treatment free

The vulnerable population

How vulnerable is defined

Those without resources to meet minimum needs for human development

Emergency care

Owed by any establishment, public or private, while grave risk lasts

Social-security cover for an employed resident foreigner

Compulsory, whatever the size of the employer

Social-security cover for a non-resident foreigner

Not within the compulsory scheme

Voluntary social-security scheme

Open to the self-employed, professionals and former compulsory members

Health Cover in Panama

Panama's social security is tied to work, not to residence. Every worker in the country, national or foreign, employed or self-employed, must join the Caja de Seguro Social - and the organic law goes further than most: it forbids the labour and migration authorities from blocking a foreign worker's affiliation and contributions on the ground that the worker is breaching migration or labour rules. Someone who is not working joins voluntarily, on terms the Caja sets. A retiree on the pensionado route has no social-security entitlement from the visa at all; what they get instead is a statutory 15% off private hospital bills and 20% off medical consultations under the 1987 retirement benefits law.

Who must be insured

Every worker in Panama, national or foreign

Irregular migration status

Not a bar to affiliation

Not working

Voluntary affiliation

Proof at migration renewal

9 consecutive contributions

Pensionado visa

No social-security cover from the permit

Private hospital discount for pensioners

15%

Medical consultation discount

20%

Prescription medicines

10% off

Getting Healthcare in Paraguay

Two systems sit side by side and you reach them differently. The public network run by the health ministry is free by statute - consultations, procedures and the medicines on the national essential list - and the migration law forbids refusing care to any foreigner because their migration status is irregular. The contributory system run by the social security institute is reached through employment: the employer registers the worker, and for a foreign worker the institute asks for the migration card alongside the home-country identity document. Contributions are 9 per cent from the worker and 14 per cent from the employer, and family members are enrolled by the insured person rather than by themselves.

Cost of public health services

Free

Medicines

Free where they are on the national essential medicines list

Access with irregular migration status

Cannot be refused

Social security contributions

9% worker, 14% employer

Route into social security

Employment

Documents for a foreign worker

Home-country identity document and the migration card

Contribution by pensioners

6% of the pension

Access to the Public Health System

Peru's position is the most open of the four countries covered here. Since 2019 the state insurer SIS has been authorised to enrol any person resident in the national territory who holds no health insurance, regardless of their economic classification, and enrolment is free with no monthly payment. In practice the gate is documentary rather than legal: enrolment is done with a national identity document or a carné de extranjería, so it follows residency rather than arrival. EsSalud runs a separate paid scheme open to residents, nationals and foreigners alike.

Open to foreigners

Yes, to anyone resident in the country without other cover

Cost of SIS enrolment

None, and no monthly payment

Means test

None for SIS Para Todos

Document needed

DNI or carné de extranjería

What SIS covers

The Plan Esencial de Aseguramiento en Salud

Complementary plan and funeral benefit

In force until 31 December 2026as of 2025-12-04

EsSalud paid alternative

Seguro Potestativo, monthly contribution

Healthcare in Saint Kitts and Nevis

The Federation's Social Security scheme is an income-replacement scheme, not a health scheme. It covers everyone between sixteen and sixty-two in gainful employment, with no nationality test anywhere in what the Board publishes, and what it pays when you fall ill is cash: sixty-five per cent of average weekly wages for up to twenty-six weeks, on a contribution record of at least twenty-six contributions with eight of them in the thirteen weeks before the illness. It does not pay for treatment. There is no national health insurance here, and we could not retrieve a published schedule of what a non-national pays at a public hospital - so this record says what the scheme does and stops where the evidence stops.

National health insurance

None

Who is covered

Anyone aged 16 to 62 in gainful employment

Employee contribution

5 per cent of wages

Sickness benefit rate

65 per cent of average weekly wages

Sickness benefit duration

26 weeks

Contribution record needed

26 contributions, 8 of them in the last 13 weeks

Voluntary contributors

No sickness benefit

Portability for OECS citizens

Stated by the OECS Commission

Health care in Saint Lucia

Saint Lucia charges by nationality and says so in the fee table. The Hospitals Regulations set an accommodation charge for a shared ward of EC$50 a day at a secondary or tertiary hospital, rising to EC$200 for an isolation unit and EC$300 for intensive care - and then a single line, "Charge to non-nationals (except CARICOM countries)", at EC$275. At a district hospital the equivalent non-national charge is EC$150. A Caribbean Community national pays what a Saint Lucian pays. Primary care is different again: a visit to the doctor's clinic at a health centre is free, with no nationality condition attached to it at all. The Regulations are old - amended by instruments of 1992, 1997 and 2020 - and the figures should be read as the published schedule rather than as what a hospital will invoice today.

Open ward, per day

EC$50

Non-national surcharge rate, secondary or tertiary hospital

EC$275

Non-national rate, district hospital

EC$150

Caribbean Community nationals

Charged as nationals

Health centre doctor's clinic

Free

Administrative fee on admission

EC$10

Statutory health insurance requirement

None found

Casualty consultation at Victoria Hospital

EC$20, follow-ups free

Different by nationality: CARICOM Member States Read them

Healthcare in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

The National Insurance Services is the contributory scheme, and it pays cash benefits - sickness, maternity, invalidity, age, funeral, survivors' and employment injury - rather than paying for treatment. Registration is compulsory for every employee within seven days of starting work and carries no nationality condition, so a foreign worker is inside it from the first week. What the system does not publish is any statement of what a non-national pays at a public hospital: the Ministry of Health's own site could not be read. The one group whose position is stated plainly is nationals of Barbados, Belize and Dominica, who since October 2025 have the right to emergency and primary health care on the same basis as a Vincentian.

National Insurance registration

Compulsory, within 7 days of starting work

What the National Insurance Services pays

Cash benefits, not treatment

Employment injury cover

Everyone, including workers under 16 and over pensionable age

Health care for nationals of Barbados, Belize and Dominica

Emergency and primary care on the same basis as a Vincentian

Contributions made elsewhere in the region

Counted, under two reciprocal agreements

What a non-national pays at a public hospital

Not published

Different by nationality: CARICOM full free movement (enhanced cooperation) Read them

Basic Health Insurance Is Compulsory for Anyone Actually Living Here, Whatever Their Status

The Wet Nationale Basiszorgverzekering of 2014 makes basic health insurance compulsory for every ingezetene, and it defines ingezetene more broadly than any other Surinamese statute: anyone who has his domicile, main residence or actual residence in Suriname. Nationality does not appear in the definition and neither does a residence permit. A foreigner who is in fact living in Suriname is inside the scheme, must take out at least the basic cover, and where employed has the premium split equally with the employer unless they agree otherwise, with the employee's share never exceeding the employer's. The Act prices the cover by age band and caps individual treatments by amount, and it says those figures are the maxima at its entry into force and may be changed by State decree, so the 2014 numbers in the text are a floor on how out of date they can be rather than a statement of what is charged now.

Who must insure

Anyone with domicile, main residence or actual residence in Suriname

Nationality or permit condition

None in the Act

Premium split in employment

Fifty-fifty, and the employee's share may never exceed the employer's

Premium at the Act's entry into force

SRD 55 up to 16, SRD 75 for 17 to 20, SRD 165 for 21 to 59, SRD 240 for 60 and over, per monthas of 2014-09-09

Grace on non-payment

Three months of continued cover

Means test for the indigent

An assets test at the implementing body, which can produce full or partial subsidy

Health Cover in The Bahamas: a New Act, Four Commencement Notices, and Six Months of Residence

The National Health Insurance Act, 2025 replaced the 2016 Act and continues the National Health Insurance Plan. Eligibility to enrol turns on three things: being ordinarily resident in The Bahamas, being either a citizen or a lawful resident under the Immigration Act, and being registered with the National Insurance Board with a National Insurance card. Ordinary residence is defined for this Act alone and generously - The Bahamas is home for that person for not less than six months before the application for registration - with absences for occasional or temporary reasons disregarded. A foreign national on a work permit or a residence permit therefore qualifies after six months, which is more open than most schemes in the region. The commencement is the part a reader has to be told about, because it has been done four times: a notice of November 2025 brought most of the Act into force from 24 November 2025, a notice of December 2025 revoked that notice retroactively as from the same day, a second December notice re-appointed the same date for a shorter list of sections, and a third appointed 24 November 2026 for sections 34 to 37 and subsections 28(2) to (5). Section 28(1), the eligibility rule, has been in force throughout.

Ordinary residence

The Bahamas as home for not less than six months before applying to register

Immigration status needed

Citizen, or lawful resident under the Immigration Act

Also required

Registration with the National Insurance Board and a National Insurance card

National insurance itself

Compulsory for every employed and self-employed person above compulsory school age

Who cannot enrol

Employees of a declared international organisation

Sections still to come into force

Sections 34 to 37 and section 28(2) to (5), on 24 November 2026

Healthcare in Trinidad and Tobago

Public healthcare is delivered by five Regional Health Authorities, and the statute that creates them does not say who is entitled to use them. The Regional Health Authorities Act incorporates each authority and gives it powers and functions - to provide efficient systems for the delivery of health care, to collaborate on teaching and research, to operate and maintain its property - and stops there. There is no entitlement provision, no eligibility criterion, no mention of nationality, residence or status, and no fee-charging power on the face of it. The Ministry of Health's own page on accessing public healthcare tells a reader which building to go to for which complaint and says nothing at all about who may go or what it costs. What there is instead is a tax: the Health Surcharge Act charges every employed person who pays national insurance and every individual who has to file a return, at TT$8.25 a week above a threshold and TT$4.80 below it, and directs the money into the Consolidated Fund to be applied to the provision of health services. It is charged on people in employment, not on citizens, so a work permit holder pays it.

Statutory entitlement to public healthcare

None found

Nationality or residence condition

None stated in the Regional Health Authorities Act

Who delivers it

Five Regional Health Authorities, each a body corporate

Health surcharge above TT$469.99 a month

TT$8.25 per week

Health surcharge below that

TT$4.80 per week

Who pays it

Every employed person liable to national insurance, and every individual liable to file a return

Who does not

Under sixteen, and sixty and over

Where it goes

The Consolidated Fund, to be applied to the provision of health services

Access to the Public Health System

Uruguay's public provider, ASSE, is open to foreigners including those with no residency application under way - they enrol by paying a monthly fee. Enrolment itself costs nothing and is done in person at any affiliation desk. This is close to the opposite of Argentina's position, where the 2025 reform restricted ordinary public care to permanent residents and citizens.

Open to foreigners without residency

Yes, on a paid monthly fee

Cost of enrolling

None

What enrolment covers

The Plan Integral de Salud set by the Ministry of Public Health

How

In person, at any affiliation desk

Contrast with Argentina

Opposite direction

Access to Healthcare in Venezuela

Access does not turn on your immigration status. The Constitution makes health a social right the state must guarantee and says that all persons have the right to the protection of health; the public system it requires is governed by principles that include free provision and universality. The health law repeats it from the service side: health services guarantee the protection of health to all the inhabitants of the country and work without discrimination of any kind. None of these texts distinguishes a foreigner from a national, and the immigration Act says separately that foreigners have the same rights as nationals.

Who the right reaches

All persons

Who the services reach

All the inhabitants of the country

Principles of the public system

Free provision, universality, integrality, equity, social integration and solidarity

Condition on immigration status

None stated

Can public health services be privatised

No - the Constitution says the goods and services are state property and may not be privatised