One of the challenges facing public health officials in reducing diet-related illnesses is the relatively easy and inexpensive availability of sugar-sweetened beverages around the world. To address this burden, public health organizations such as the World Health Organization and the American Heart Association recommend that governments tax sugar-sweetened beverages. New research from the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University’s Gerald J. Friedman and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy shows that the policy is being adopted at an accelerating rate around the world, with 64 countries passing health-focused sugary beverage taxes between 1990 and 2024, affecting 3.5 billion people worldwide.
Leading the way are South Asian countries, with 50% of them having introduced sugar-sweetened beverage taxes, followed by countries in South and East Asia at nearly 48%. The researchers found that, overall, 29% of high-income countries have such taxes in place. In contrast, the countries with the lowest adoption rates were Central Eastern Europe and Central Asia at 17%. The study will be published on June 8th. lancet global health.
The reason for adopting this variation is so far unclear. In the first analysis of its kind, researchers found that the country’s burden of type 2 diabetes and obesity, rather than consumption rates of sugary drinks, was the driver of the tax.
“Surprisingly, the consumption rate of sugar-sweetened beverages is not significantly related to whether a country chooses to tax the beverage, suggesting that these decisions are driven by disease burden,” said Lisbeth Moreno Loaheza, lead author of the study. He led the research while a postdoctoral fellow at the Friedman School and currently works at Mexico’s Salvador Zubirán National Institute of Scientific and Nutritional Sciences. city. “We also found that countries with more social and health development are less likely to introduce these taxes, regardless of their economic wealth. This may be because these countries generally have stronger health systems and lower rates of diet-related illnesses.”
The study utilized multiple global datasets from 1990 to 2024 across 183 countries, including the World Dietary Database, Global Burden of Disease Study, Noncommunicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration, and World Bank data, to identify the characteristics of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes introduced for health purposes and the factors associated with their introduction. Tax characteristics were identified using data from the World Bank, World Health Organization, and the University of North Carolina. The researchers’ analysis shows that in a total of 64 countries that passed these taxes during this period, tax rates ranged from 1% to 34% per country, and from 5% to 17% across world regions, with the highest median rates in the Middle East and North Africa. In most countries, sugar-sweetened beverages were taxed based on price or volume. Only a few link taxes to sugar content, and researchers say this approach may be the most effective because it encourages beverage companies to reduce sugar in their products.
Remarkably, despite the public health rationale behind these policies, researchers found that only 13% of countries direct revenue to health programs, missing an opportunity to double public benefits.
In a 2025 study published in the journal natural medicineResearchers from Tufts University and the Global Diary Database estimate that sugar-sweetened beverages are responsible for 2.2 million new cases of diabetes and 1.2 million new cardiovascular diseases worldwide each year, highlighting the urgent public health need for policies to reduce their consumption.
We know these taxes work, and we now have a clearer picture of how they are adopted and what is driving countries to do so. Almost half of the world’s population currently lives under national sugar-sweetened beverage taxes, but many of these taxes remain at relatively low rates, and we found that dozens of other countries, including the United States, do not pass national taxes.
Darish Mozaffarian, study lead author, cardiologist, and director of the Food is Medicine Institute
“These findings highlight the opportunity to continue to promote nutrition and well-being through smart policies like soda taxes around the world,” Mozaffarian added.
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Reference magazines:
Loaeza, LM; Others. (2026). Understanding sugar-sweetened beverage tax implementation around the world: A 34-year population-based observational study in 183 countries. lancet global health. DOI: 10.1016/S2214-109X(26)00093-8. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(26)00093-8/fulltext
