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The World Health Organization asked in January 2026 for countries to substantially tighten taxes on alcohol and sugary drinks, after confirming in two of its own reports that most current tax systems leave these products too cheap to really influence their consumption.
The call is supported by two documents published in January 2026, the Global report on the use of alcohol taxes 2025 and the Global report on the use of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes 2025, both released by the WHO itself (World Health Organization, 2026).
The two reports measure for the first time in a comparable way how much these beverages are taxed in each country and how far that tax burden is from moving the final price for the consumer.
According to that data, 167 countries apply some tax on alcohol and 12 prohibit it directly, while 116 countries tax sugary drinks. The figure that most concerns the organization is another one.
97% of countries tax energy drinks, a percentage that has not moved since 2023, a sign that taxation on these products was frozen just when their consumption was growing.
What Do the New Reports Reveal About Beer, Spirits, and Wine?
The report on alcohol calculates a global median of 14% tax on the price of beer and 22.5% on spirits, well below the threshold that the WHO itself considers necessary to discourage consumption.
Wine is in a separate position, since 25 countries, mostly European, do not charge it any special tax.
Regarding sugary drinks, the average tax is barely around 2% of the price of a soft drink, a figure that the WHO describes as insufficient to modify consumption habits on a large scale.
Health taxes are one of the strongest tools we have to prevent disease and save lives.
The phrase is from Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, at the presentation of both reports on January 13, 2026.
Why Does the Real Price of Alcohol Keep Falling?
Dr. Etienne Krug, Director of the WHO Department of Health Determinants, Promotion and Prevention, was more direct about the consequences.
Cheaper alcohol drives violence, injuries, and disease while the industry profits.
The underlying problem, according to the reports, is that current taxes are not adjusted to inflation or income growth, so alcohol has become more accessible in most countries since 2022, even though the nominal tax still exists on paper.
What Does This Mean for the Beer Industry?
A median of 14% tax on beer leaves considerable room for governments to raise fiscal pressure before reaching dissuasive levels, and several countries are already doing so under the umbrella of the 3 by 35 initiative that the WHO itself launched in July 2025.
That initiative calls for raising the real prices of tobacco, alcohol, and sugary drinks by at least 50% by 2035, with the declared goal of preventing 50 million premature deaths and raising 1 trillion dollars in a decade.
For an industry that had already been adjusting to other price shocks, the signal is clear. The craft beer sector is going through years of inflation and market saturation, a picture that in Argentina led to a 30% drop in consumption and that now adds to an additional fiscal front.
Those who closely follow the major breweries on the stock market should also pay attention, because a higher tax directly affects the volumes that sustain AB InBev, Heineken, or Constellation.
The Global Consumption Decline Proves the WHO Right
The January reports are also supported by a trend that other consultancies had already been pointing out. Roland Berger projected that global alcohol consumption will fall by half by 2050, largely due to generational changes that the WHO wants to accelerate with higher taxes instead of waiting for demographic turnover to do the work alone.
A 2022 Gallup survey cited in the reports themselves shows that most people surveyed already support raising taxes on alcohol and sugary drinks, which gives the WHO an additional political argument against governments that fear the electoral cost of these measures.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. What exactly is the WHO asking governments to do?
It asks them to substantially raise taxes on alcohol and sugary drinks, based on two of its own January 2026 reports showing that the current tax burden is too low to reduce consumption effectively.
2. What is the 3 by 35 initiative?
It is the program that the WHO launched in July 2025 to raise the real prices of tobacco, alcohol, and sugary drinks by at least 50% by 2035, with the goal of preventing 50 million premature deaths and raising 1 trillion dollars in a decade.
3. How much tax does beer pay today on average?
According to the WHO report, the global median is 14% of the sale price, well below the 22.5% paid by spirits and far from the level the organization considers necessary to discourage consumption.
4. Why does wine pay almost no taxes in many countries?
Because 25 countries, mostly European, do not apply any special tax to wine, a historical exception linked to the economic and cultural importance of the wine industry in those regions.
5. Can this raise the price of beer in the short term?
It depends on each country. Several governments are already using the WHO reports as a technical basis to raise the fiscal burden on alcohol and sugary drinks in their upcoming budgets.
