Organ Trafficking in Canada 2026
Organ trafficking in Canada 2026 remains a difficult subject to measure because it hides behind two very different realities: a well-documented, legal organ donation system tracked in fine detail every year, and a shadowy international black market that Canadian law only recently began to punish directly. For most of the last decade, Canada had no dedicated criminal offence for buying an organ abroad or profiting from illegal transplants, even though patients from wealthy nations, including Canada, have long been named in cases involving black-market kidneys and livers sourced from vulnerable donors overseas. That changed with the passage of Bill S-223 in December 2022, which finally gave Canadian prosecutors the power to charge citizens who take part in organ trafficking or transplant tourism, whether the conduct happens on Canadian soil or thousands of kilometres away.
This report pulls together the most current verified numbers on organ donation, transplant waiting lists, deaths while waiting, and the legal framework that now governs organ trafficking in Canada, sourced from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), Statistics Canada, the Library of Parliament, and Senate records. Because Canada does not maintain a public national registry of domestic organ trafficking prosecutions, this report is transparent about where hard crime data exists and where the picture instead relies on transplant demand, donor supply, and international comparison statistics that explain why organ trafficking pressure on Canadians persists. Readers will find the newest 2025 transplant figures released in mid-2026, the size of Canada’s kidney waiting list, and the global financial scale of the illegal organ trade that continues to put Canadian patients at risk.
Key Facts and Latest Organ Trafficking Statistics in Canada 2026
| Fact | Figure (Latest Verified Data) |
|---|---|
| Organ transplants performed in Canada (2025) | 3,174 total transplants |
| Share of transplants from deceased donors (2025) | 81% |
| Share of transplants from living donors (2025) | 19% |
| Canadians on organ transplant wait-lists (Dec 31, 2025) | 4,344 patients |
| Patients removed from wait-lists who died waiting (2025) | 31% of 678 removals (roughly 210 deaths) |
| Deceased donors in Canada (2025) | 888 donors |
| Deceased donors who donated via MAID (2025) | 8% of all deceased donors |
| Canadians living with end-stage kidney disease (2024) | 50,000+ |
| Estimated annual value of the global illegal organ trade | US$600 million–US$1.2 billion |
| Year Canada’s organ trafficking law (Bill S-223) received Royal Assent | 2022 |
Source: Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), Summary Statistics on Organ Transplants, Wait-Lists and Donors (2025 release); Library of Parliament Legislative Summary of Bill S-223; Senate of Canada records.
The table above brings together the two threads that define this topic in Canada: the legitimate, closely monitored transplant system, and the illegal global trade that Canadian law now specifically targets. On the legitimate side, 3,174 transplants in 2025 and 4,344 people still waiting shows a persistent gap between supply and demand, a gap that history shows pushes some patients toward risky, sometimes illegal routes overseas. The 31% death rate among wait-list removals is a sobering number: it means roughly one in three Canadians who leave the transplant list in a given year do so because they died before an organ became available, not because they received one.
On the legal side, the 2022 Royal Assent of Bill S-223 marked the end of a ten-year legislative effort spanning four failed predecessor bills, finally making it a Criminal Code offence for a Canadian or permanent resident to obtain an organ without the donor’s informed consent, anywhere in the world. The US$600 million to US$1.2 billion global estimate for the illicit organ trade, cited repeatedly in Senate debate on this legislation, illustrates why lawmakers considered the problem urgent: it places organ trafficking alongside drugs, arms, and human trafficking as a major transnational criminal industry that wealthy countries like Canada have historically fuelled through demand rather than supply.
Canada’s Organ Trafficking Laws and Bill S-223 Timeline in Canada 2026
| Legislative Milestone | Year / Status |
|---|---|
| Bill C-561 and C-350 (early private member’s bills) | 2013 / 2017 — died on Order Paper |
| Bill S-240 | 2017 — passed Senate and House, died at dissolution |
| Bill S-204 | 2020–2021 — passed Senate May 2021, died in House |
| Bill S-223 second reading (Senate) | May 18, 2022 |
| Bill S-223 third reading passed | December 14, 2022 |
| Bill S-223 becomes law (S.C. 2022, c. 18) | December 2022 |
| Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs | Open to Canada; not yet ratified by Canada |
Source: Library of Parliament, Legislative Summary of Bill S-223: An Act to Amend the Criminal Code and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (Trafficking in Human Organs); OpenParliament.ca legislative records.
Legislative Progress Toward Canada's Organ Trafficking Law
C-561/C-350 (2013/2017) ▓▓░░░░░░░░ Died
S-240 (2017) ▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░ Died at dissolution
S-204 (2020-21) ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░ Died in House
S-223 (2021-22) ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ Royal Assent ✔
This timeline shows that Canada’s organ trafficking law was not a quick legislative fix but the product of roughly a decade of repeated attempts, several of which died simply because Parliament dissolved before a final vote. Senator Salma Ataullahjan, who introduced the bill in three consecutive Parliaments, argued publicly that Canada was falling behind peer nations such as Spain, Norway, and Taiwan, all of which had already criminalized transplant tourism years earlier. The final version, Bill S-223, closed that gap by creating new Criminal Code offences with extraterritorial reach, meaning Canadians can now be prosecuted at home for organ trafficking conduct committed entirely outside the country, and by making any person linked to organ trafficking inadmissible to Canada under immigration law.
Despite this legal milestone, Canada has still not ratified the Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs, the first binding international treaty devoted solely to this crime, even though the treaty remains open to non-European signatories including Canada. This leaves a policy gap: domestic law now criminalizes the individual act of transplant tourism, but Canada has not yet joined the broader international cooperation framework built to track and prosecute organ trafficking networks across borders, which experts argue is where much of the real enforcement challenge lies.
Organ Transplant Waiting List Statistics in Canada 2026
| Organ Category | Share of Wait-List (Dec 31, 2024 data) |
|---|---|
| Kidney | 70.1% |
| Liver | 14.6% |
| Lung | 5.6% |
| Heart | 4.5% |
| Pancreas | 2.6% |
| Combination/multi-organ | 2.5% |
| Total Canadians waiting (Dec 31, 2024) | 4,044 |
| Total Canadians waiting (Dec 31, 2025) | 4,344 |
Source: Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), Organ Donation and Transplantation Data and Reporting, 2024 and 2025 releases.
Wait-List Composition by Organ (2024)
Kidney ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 70.1%
Liver ▓▓▓ 14.6%
Lung ▓ 5.6%
Heart ▓ 4.5%
Pancreas ▓ 2.6%
Combination ▓ 2.5%
Kidneys dominate Canada’s organ transplant wait-list, accounting for roughly seven out of every ten patients waiting for a transplant, a pattern driven by the high and rising prevalence of end-stage kidney disease across the country. This concentration matters directly to the organ trafficking conversation, since international black-market cases almost always involve kidneys, precisely because a living donor can survive with one kidney, making it the organ most commonly targeted by illegal brokers connecting desperate patients with vulnerable sellers abroad.
The increase from 4,044 to 4,344 waiting patients between the end of 2024 and the end of 2025 shows the wait-list growing even as transplant volumes hold roughly steady, meaning the underlying gap between organ supply and patient need widened rather than closed over the past year. For policymakers, this growing wait-list is often cited as the core driver behind transplant tourism: when Canadians face years-long waits at home, a small number will always be tempted by faster, illegal options overseas, regardless of the legal risk introduced by Bill S-223.
Organ Donor and Transplant Volume Statistics in Canada 2026
| Donor/Transplant Metric | 2025 Figure |
|---|---|
| Total deceased donors | 888 |
| Deceased donors via neurological determination of death | 62% |
| Deceased donors via circulatory death (non-MAID) | 30% |
| Deceased donors via Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) | 8% |
| Living donors: related to recipient | 50% |
| Living donors: unrelated to recipient | 50% |
| Transplants that were kidney procedures | 59% |
Source: Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), Summary Statistics on Organ Transplants, Wait-Lists and Donors, released June 2026.
Deceased Donor Pathways (2025)
Neurological death ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 62%
Circulatory (non-MAID) ▓▓▓▓▓▓ 30%
MAID-related donation ▓▓ 8%
Canada’s donor base splits fairly evenly between deceased and living sources, but the 8% share of deceased donors linked to Medical Assistance in Dying is a distinctly Canadian statistic not seen at this scale in most other countries, reflecting Canada’s relatively broad MAID framework combined with an organ donation system built to offer eligible patients the option to donate afterward. This is a legally regulated, consent-based process overseen by hospital ethics and donation teams, and it should not be confused with organ trafficking, which by definition involves organs obtained without informed consent for illegal profit.
The 50/50 split between related and unrelated living donors also reflects a shift in Canadian transplant medicine over the past fifteen years, as paired kidney exchange programs and altruistic (non-directed) donor registries have expanded the pool of unrelated donors well beyond the traditional family-member model. This legitimate expansion of living donation is one of the health system’s key strategies for reducing dependence on deceased donors and, indirectly, for narrowing the wait-list pressure that can otherwise push patients toward unregulated markets abroad.
Deaths on the Organ Transplant Waiting List in Canada 2026
| Wait-List Outcome Metric | 2025 Figure |
|---|---|
| Total patients removed from wait-lists | 678 |
| Removals due to death while waiting | 31% |
| Patients “active” on wait-lists (Dec 31, 2025) | 68% of 4,344 |
| Patients “on hold” on wait-lists (Dec 31, 2025) | 32% of 4,344 |
| Deaths on wait-list reported for 2023 (comparison year) | 211 deaths |
Source: Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), Summary Statistics on Organ Transplants, Wait-Lists and Donors; Library of Parliament overview citing 2023 CIHI data.
Wait-List Removal Outcomes (2025, n=678)
Died while waiting ▓▓▓▓▓▓ 31%
Other removal reasons ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 69%
Roughly 210 Canadians died in 2025 while formally on an organ transplant wait-list, a continuation of a grim pattern that has held steady for several years, including the 211 deaths recorded in 2023. These are not organ trafficking victims in the criminal sense, but they represent the demand-side pressure that fuels the market: every patient who dies waiting is also a patient who, earlier in their illness, may have weighed the option of paying a broker for a faster transplant abroad.
The distinction between the 68% of patients still “active” and the 32% “on hold” matters for interpreting how urgent the wait truly is, since “on hold” patients are typically too sick for surgery at that moment or are undergoing preparatory treatment, not people who have given up on a transplant altogether. Health researchers who study transplant tourism consistently point to this wait-list death rate as the strongest domestic argument for expanding legal donation capacity in Canada, arguing that reducing the wait is a more sustainable solution than relying solely on criminal deterrence against organ trafficking abroad.
Kidney Disease and Dialysis Statistics Linked to Organ Demand in Canada 2026
| Kidney Health Metric (2024) | Figure |
|---|---|
| Canadians living with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) | 50,000+ |
| Patients on dialysis | 30,213 |
| Patients living with a functioning kidney transplant | 19,940 |
| Kidney transplant recipients (first transplant, 2024) | 1,676 |
| 5-year average annual decline in new RRT starts | 2.9% |
| Living kidney donors readmitted within 30 days (2024) | 1.3% (n=6) |
Source: Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), Renal Replacement Therapy in Canada: CORR Annual Statistics, December 2025.
If you are researching related public-health trends alongside these figures, the Canada Diabetes Statistics report is a useful companion, since diabetes remains one of the leading causes of the kidney failure driving this demand.
End-Stage Kidney Disease Population (2024, ~50,000+)
On dialysis ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 30,213
Living with kidney transplant ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 19,940
More than 50,000 Canadians are now living with end-stage kidney disease, and only about 40% of that group currently carries a functioning transplant, with the majority instead managed through ongoing dialysis. This scale of chronic kidney failure is the single biggest structural reason kidneys dominate Canada’s transplant wait-list and, by extension, why kidneys are also the organ most frequently implicated in international organ trafficking cases involving Canadian patients.
The 1,676 Canadians who received a first kidney transplant in 2024 represent only a fraction of the more than 50,000 people living with kidney failure, underscoring why some patients facing years on dialysis have historically considered paying for a kidney abroad rather than continuing to wait. Encouragingly, the data also shows living kidney donation is remarkably safe within Canada’s regulated system, with just 1.3% of donors readmitted to hospital within 30 days, a safety record that stands in sharp contrast to the well-documented surgical complications reported among Canadians who obtained kidneys through unregulated transplant tourism abroad.
International Organ Donation Rate Comparison for Canada 2026
| Country | Deceased Donor Rate (per million population) |
|---|---|
| Spain | ~47–49 (world leader) |
| United States | ~44.5 |
| Canada | ~21–22 |
| United Kingdom | Comparable to Canada |
Source: CIHI Organ Donation and Transplantation Infographics (2025); Statista/EDQM data, 2022–2023; HillNotes Library of Parliament research summary.
For readers tracking Canada’s broader mortality and demographic context, the Canada Death Rate page offers useful background on the population trends that shape donor availability nationwide.
Deceased Donor Rate per Million Population
Spain ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 47-49
US ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 44.5
Canada ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 21-22
Canada’s deceased donor rate sits at only about half of Spain’s, the global leader thanks largely to its opt-out consent system and dedicated in-hospital donation coordinators, a gap that CIHI itself describes as placing Canada in the “middle of the pack” among comparably resourced health systems. Interestingly, Canada actually performs better on living donation, reporting roughly 14.8 living donors per million population, a rate that exceeds the United Kingdom, Australia, and Spain, showing that Canada’s organ shortage is really a deceased-donation problem rather than a living-donation one.
This international gap is directly relevant to organ trafficking risk, because health researchers and Senate testimony have repeatedly linked slower deceased-donation systems to higher rates of patients seeking transplants abroad. Countries that close their donor gap through legal domestic reform, rather than relying on criminal deterrents alone, tend to see fewer citizens turn to black-market transplant brokers, which is why boosting Canada’s deceased donation rate remains a parallel policy goal alongside enforcing the new organ trafficking law.
Global Organ Trafficking Market and Transplant Tourism Cases Linked to Canada 2026
| Global Organ Trafficking Metric | Estimate |
|---|---|
| Estimated annual profit of illegal organ trade (global) | US$600 million–US$1.2 billion |
| Share of worldwide transplants believed to be black-market | ~10% |
| Documented Canadian black-market kidney payment (Kosovo case) | US$105,000 (2008 transaction) |
| Countries with organ-sale bans (approximate, as of recent count) | 100+ countries |
| Council of Europe Convention ratifying states (as of Jan 2025) | 15 states (Canada not among them) |
Source: Senate of Canada, Senator Salma Ataullahjan public statements and Senate speeches on Bill S-223/S-204; Library of Parliament, Trafficking in Human Organs: An Overview.
Anyone comparing this to other cross-border health and substance-related crime trends in Canada may also find the Canada Opioid Crisis Statistics overview relevant, since both issues involve underground markets that Canadian law enforcement has struggled to fully quantify.
Global Illegal Organ Trade Snapshot
Annual illegal profit US$600M - US$1.2B
Black-market transplant share ~10% of all transplants worldwide
The most concrete documented case connecting a Canadian patient to organ trafficking dates back to 2008, when a Canadian man reportedly paid US$105,000 for a black-market kidney from a woman in Russia through a private clinic in Kosovo; the transplant was later described in court as a contributing factor in his death, and the case became central evidence in the 2013 Kosovo organ trafficking trial that first pushed Canadian senators to draft anti-trafficking legislation. While Canada does not currently publish a running national count of prosecutions under Bill S-223, this historical case remains the most cited real-world example connecting a Canadian recipient directly to a criminal organ trafficking network.
Globally, an estimated 10% of all transplants performed each year are believed to occur through illegal or unregulated channels, generating hundreds of millions to over a billion dollars annually for trafficking networks that prey overwhelmingly on impoverished donors. With 100-plus countries now banning organ sales and only 15 states having ratified the Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs as of January 2025, Canada’s 2022 legislation places it among a growing but still incomplete list of nations formally criminalizing transplant tourism, even as the country has not yet joined that specific European-led treaty framework.
Human Trafficking and Organ Removal Reports in Canada 2026
| Human Trafficking Metric (Canada, police-reported) | Figure (2014–2024) |
|---|---|
| Total human trafficking incidents reported | 5,070 incidents |
| Average annual rate | 1.2 per 100,000 population |
| Share involving Criminal Code violations | 75% |
| Share involving Immigration and Refugee Protection Act offences | 25% |
| Confirmed organ-removal-specific prosecutions reported nationally | No dedicated public tally identified |
Source: Statistics Canada, Trafficking in Persons in Canada, 2024 (Juristat), published December 2025.
Human Trafficking Incidents by Offence Type (2014-2024, n=5,070)
Criminal Code violations ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 75%
IRPA (cross-border) offences ▓▓▓▓▓ 25%
Statistics Canada’s broader human trafficking data does not break out organ removal as its own tracked category, a gap that reflects both the international legal definition of human trafficking, which explicitly includes organ removal as one recognized form of exploitation, and the practical difficulty of detecting a crime that so rarely surfaces through victim reporting inside Canada’s borders. Of the 5,070 incidents logged between 2014 and 2024, the large majority were domestic Criminal Code matters rather than the cross-border IRPA offences more likely to capture international organ trafficking activity, suggesting that organ-specific cases, if they occur, represent an extremely small and likely under-detected slice of Canada’s overall trafficking picture.
This data gap is precisely why Bill S-223 was designed with extraterritorial reach rather than relying on existing trafficking statutes: lawmakers recognized that a Canadian who purchases an organ overseas may never appear in domestic trafficking statistics at all, since the exploitation and the transaction both occur abroad. Going forward, closing this measurement gap, potentially through the kind of physician reporting system some transplant researchers have proposed, would give Canada a clearer national picture of how many citizens are still engaging in transplant tourism despite the new law, and how effectively Bill S-223 is deterring it since taking effect in December 2022.
Disclaimer: The data research report we present here is based on information found from various sources. We are not liable for any financial loss, errors, or damages of any kind that may result from the use of the information herein. We acknowledge that though we try to report accurately, we cannot verify the absolute facts of everything that has been represented.
