Governments should “significantly strengthen” taxes on alcoholic and sugary drinks as these products are getting cheaper, fueling obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancers and injuries.

This is according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which issued two reports on taxing sugary drinks and alcohol on Tuesday, including how countries are implementing these.

“In most countries, these taxes are too low to be effective, poorly designed, not adjusted regularly, and rarely aligned with public health objectives,” WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a media briefing on Tuesday.

“As a result, alcohol and sugary drinks have become more affordable, even as diseases and injuries associated with their consumption continue to place growing strain on health systems, families and budgets.”

Only 14% of countries adjust taxes according to inflation, allowing health-harming products to become steadily more affordable. 

Tedros also warned that health taxes “are not a silver bullet” or simple to introduce: “They can be politically unpopular, and they attract opposition from powerful industries with deep pockets and a lot to lose. But many countries have shown that when they’re done right, they’re a powerful tool for help.”

Sugary drink taxes are ‘too low’

In the case of sugary drinks, at least 116 countries tax these, but there are several weaknesses, the biggest being that taxes are too low, according to the WHO report on sugary drinks taxes.

WHO economist Anne-Marie Perucic said that the average tax is around 9%. The average tax on a 330ml can of soda is merely 2,4%, according to the report.

“That’s very low, because if we compare it with [the tax on] tobacco products, on average it’s about 50% to 60%.”

Some countries only tax sodas, meaning that fruit juices, sweetened milk drinks, and ready-to-drink coffees and teas high in sugar escape taxation. Sweetened milk products are the least likely to be taxed.

Since 2013, consumption of sugary drinks has increased globally by 14%, and the most popular brands have become cheaper over the last three decades in most countries, according to WHO.

But several countries have had successes. Tedros reported that a sugary drinks tax introduced in the United Kingdom in 2018 “reduced sugar consumption, generated £338 million in revenue in 2024 alone, and has been associated with lower obesity rates in girls aged 10 to 11, especially in the most deprived areas.”

Meanwhile, Mauritius recently doubled their tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, said Perucic.

No tax on wine in 25 countries

“Alcohol consumption is one of the leading risk factors for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) worldwide. It is also a risk factor for poor mental health, injury and poisoning,” according to the WHO report on alcohol taxes.

At least 167 countries levy taxes on alcoholic beverages, and 12 ban alcohol entirely. 

Most countries use volume-based excise taxes for beer and wine, and excise taxes for spirits based on their alcohol content.

“The global median excise tax shares are low for both beer (20.9% of retail price)and spirits (28.4% of retail price),” according to the WHO.

Wine is untaxed in at least 25 countries, mostly in Europe, despite clear health risks. WHO recommends that alcohol taxes should apply to all alcoholic beverages “to avoid incentivising undesirable substitutions “.

Meanwhile, “alcohol has become more affordable or remained unchanged in price in most countries since 2022, as taxes fail to keep pace with inflation and income growth,” according to WHO.

One of the few success stories for alcohol taxes is Lithuania, where “a major tax increase on alcohol in 2017 was associated with an almost 5% reduction in all-cause mortality the following year,” according to Tedros.

Taxes are a win-win

WHO Assistant Director-General Dr Jeremy Farrar added that “the evidence from tobacco is obviously extremely strong that if taxation is increased, consumption reduces” and that “we can anticipate from the existing evidence that this will be true for alcohol and sugary drinks as well”.

Farrar described high taxes on unhealthy products as “a win-win on every aspect”, encouraging people to lower their consumption of these products, preventing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and enabling governments to raise revenue.

Alison Cox, the NCD Alliance’s director of policy and advocacy, described well-designed health taxes as a “triple win”, bringing about “better health outcomes, stronger public finances, and reduced long-term costs”. 

However, she said that the pushback against including tax targets in the United Nations (UN) Political Declaration on NCDs and mental health, which was recently adopted by the UN General Assembly, “reflects the continued influence of health-harming industries like producers of tobacco, alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages”. 

Cox added that some governments framed health taxes as external interference in their national sovereignty.

“These sovereignty arguments can act as dog-whistle language obscuring the reality: health taxes can support national autonomy by increasing capacity to respond to domestic health and fiscal challenges on their own terms,” said Cox.

“They protect population health while internalizing the social and economic costs of harmful products to the industries who create them – costs that would otherwise be externalized onto individuals, families, and overstretched public systems.”

Last July, WHO launched its 3 by 35 Initiative to increase the real prices of any or all of three health-harming products – tobacco, alcohol, and sugary drinks – by at least 50% by 2035 through tax increases, while taking into account each country’s unique context.

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