Taxes on alcoholic beverages in the Americas. Regional report 2025

Description

Alcohol consumption is one of the leading risk factors for disease, injury, and premature mortality in the world's population. It is linked to more than 200 health conditions, including noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases, as well as mental health conditions, injuries and violence. Harmful alcohol consumption represents a major public health challenge for the Region of the Americas, which ranks second worldwide in per capita alcohol consumption and has the second highest prevalence of occasional excessive alcohol consumption. One of the most effective population level measures to reduce alcohol consumption and related hard is to impose excise taxes on alcoholic beverages. A large body of international evidence shows that price increases and higher taxes on alcoholic beverages are consistently associated with a reduction in overall alcohol consumption, heavy drinking, and alcohol attributable harm. Taxes on alcoholic beverages can also contribute to preventing alcohol-related injuries, improving public road safety, and reducing the burden on health systems, while generating additional fiscal revenues that can support health and social programs. Based on this evidence, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) recommend raising excise taxes on alcoholic beverages as a cost effective and evidence based measure to reduce harmful alcohol consumption. The objective of this report is to show how taxes on alcoholic beverages are being applied in the Americas in 2024 and to analyze how these policies have evolvesince 2020, when data on prices and taxes for these products in the Region first became available.

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