Switzerland imports record number of organs

Switzerland has imported more organs than ever before Keystone-SDA

More people received transplants in Switzerland in 2025 thanks to a record number of imported organs.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Last year, 185 deceased people in Switzerland donated their organs, according to the annual report of Swisstransplant.

That was two fewer people than in the previous record year. The foundation recorded a significant decline in the number of living kidney and liver donations. The number of these fell by 16.5% to 96 cases.

+ Organ donation: lifting the burden on those left behind

Despite the slight drop in donor numbers, 643 people received one or more organs. This corresponds to a slight increase of around 1% compared to the previous year and is the second-highest number of transplants ever carried out in Switzerland. The number of heart and pancreas transplants in particular increased.

Imported organs

According to the organ donation organisation, the international exchange of organs played a decisive role. A new high was reached with 69 imported organs. This means that almost every eighth organ transplanted in Switzerland came from abroad. Lungs were imported most frequently. In turn, 25 organs were exported from Switzerland.

In the course of 2025, a total of 2,109 people were on the waiting list for a donor organ. Some 67 people died while waiting for an organ. This was 10.7% fewer than in the previous year. At the end of 2025, there were still 1,325 people on the list.

Opt-out solution

The extended consent solution currently still applies to organ donations in Switzerland. If the person being considered as a donor or their relatives do not expressly consent to organ donation, the organs may not be donated in the event of death.

+ Swiss voters back opt-out organ donation system

If the wishes of the deceased are not known, the majority of relatives currently decide against organ donation, according to Swisstransplant.

In future, anyone who does not wish to donate organs and tissue after death must state this. In 2022, voters said yes to a proposal by the government and parliament.

This so-called objection regulation is expected to come into force in the third quarter of 2027.

Adapted from German by AI/mga

How we work

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail].