Countries with the Highest Cancer Incidence Rates 2024

Countries ranked by cancer incidence rate in 2024, measured as new diagnoses per 100,000 people and reported by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Australia records the highest rate at 487, followed by New Zealand on 456 and Ireland on 440.

The eight countries listed run from 487 down to France on 398, a spread of 89 cases per 100,000 — the highest rate is 1.22 times the lowest, which is a narrow band for a table of this kind.

The most important thing about this dataset is what the metric counts, because the ranking is widely misread. Incidence measures diagnoses recorded, not disease present. A country with comprehensive screening programmes finds cancers that would otherwise go undetected, and a country where people live longer records more cancers because age is the single largest risk factor. Every country in this top eight is high-income with a long life expectancy and an established cancer registry — which is also what makes their data complete enough to appear in a comparison at all.

Countries with far lower recorded incidence are not necessarily healthier populations. Many have younger age structures and less complete registration, and some of them have higher cancer mortality despite lower recorded incidence, because cases are found later.

The figures here are age-standardised, meaning they are adjusted to a common reference age structure so that an older country is not automatically ranked above a younger one. That adjustment removes the demographic distortion but not the detection one: better screening still produces more diagnoses. Incidence and mortality are separate series, and for judging how dangerous cancer is in a country, mortality is the more direct measure.