Jennifer Mendoza
Research expert covering health, pharma and medtech
Organ donations and transplants - Statistics & Facts
In 2023, there were over 172 thousand organ transplantations worldwide. Kidney transplantations accounted for around 65 percent of all transplants that year, while 24 percent were liver transplants. Some organs, such as a kidney, can be donated while the donor is alive, but most donations occur after the donor has deceased. Although thousands of life-saving organ transplantations are performed every year, there remains an unmet need for organ donations around the world. Laws allowing consent for organ donation differ from country to country, and, therefore, donation rates also vary widely. There are two main methods for determining organ donation consent after death: opt-in and opt-out. The United States, Brazil, and Israel have the opt-in system, where consent is needed to proceed with the donation process. Other countries have an opt-out system, where an individual is presumed to support donation unless they have actively refused consent. Nations with opt-out systems include Spain, the United Kingdom, and Argentina.
Organ donations in the United States
In 2023, the United States had the second highest rate of deceased organ donors in the world, just behind Spain, and the highest rate of patients with transplanted organs. In 2024, the total number of organ donors in the U.S. was just over 24 thousand, a record high for the country. That year, males accounted for around 54 percent of all organ donors and the most commonly donated organs were kidneys, livers, and hearts. Although most organ donations are from the deceased, there were 6,290 kidney transplants from living donors in 2023.How many organ transplants are performed each year and what do they cost?
In 2024, the total number of organ transplants in the United States reached over 48 thousand. However, the unmet need for organ donation is a big problem in the United States with over 105 thousand candidates waiting for an organ donation as of May 2025, around 91 thousand of which were waiting for kidney donations. Furthermore, when a candidate is able to receive a transplantation the procedure can be very costly. For example, a kidney transplant in the United States costs an average of around 446,800 U.S. dollars, and kidney transplantations are one of the cheapest organ transplantations. The most expensive transplantations are a double lung transplant and a heart transplant. As of 2025, a heart transplant in the United States costs over 1.9 million U.S. dollars.
