A medical flight home is a bill that the public health systems in this guide do not pay, or pay only in part.

It lands with the patient, the family or a travel insurer, and government figures run to six digits. This guide sets out what a medical repatriation costs, what public systems in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Switzerland and the United States pay toward it, and who decides how a patient flies home.

What a medical repatriation is

The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) uses the term for a patient brought home while still receiving care, and separates it from a medical evacuation, which moves a patient because specialist care is not available locally. A repatriation follows once the patient is fit to travel and treatment can continue at home.

It is not rare: the ambulance service of ADAC, the German automobile club, organized 9,922 repatriations to a hospital at home in 2025, most of them after injuries.

By air, there are two basic ways home. A stable patient can travel on a scheduled flight with a doctor or nurse alongside; Rega uses a scheduled flight whenever the patient’s state of health allows. A patient who needs intensive care flies in an air ambulance; Rega’s crews always include at least a flight physician and a flight nurse.

What a medical flight home costs

There is no official price list, but governments publish ranges. The U.S. Department of State says an air ambulance evacuation back to the United States can cost from USD 20,000 to USD 200,000, depending on where you are and your health condition. The CDC Yellow Book puts medical evacuation at USD 25,000 within North America to over USD 250,000 from distant or remote places, and higher for critically ill patients.

Operators publish their own figures. ADAC puts an intensive-care transport by ambulance aircraft at EUR 400,000 from Australia or New Zealand, EUR 200,000 from North or South America and EUR 75,000 from the Canary Islands, as of 2025. Rega’s chief executive told the Touring Club Schweiz that a repatriation by Rega jet costs more than CHF 100,000 from Thailand and about CHF 30,000 from Spain, depending on flight time.

The FCDO’s examples for uninsured travelers, which include treatment and, where needed, evacuation or repatriation, run from GBP 25,000 or more for a broken leg in Spain and GBP 80,000 or more for a quad bike accident in Greece to GBP 150,000 or more for an infection treated in a hospital in the USA.

For a scheduled flight with a medical escort, we found no official price. Allianz Care, which uses commercial flights for medically stable patients, says only that its escort service delivers significant cost savings and keeps the air ambulance for patients who are medically critical. The price depends on where you are, the flight time and the patient’s condition.

What the UK, Germany and France pay

United Kingdom

The NHS lists being flown back to the UK among the things the GHIC and EHIC do not cover. The FCDO is just as clear: “The British embassy or consulate cannot arrange medical repatriation or pay for it.” If your insurance does not cover it, you arrange and pay for it yourself.

Germany

As a rule, German statutory health insurance does not pay for the return. Section 60(4) of the Social Code Book V says so directly: the costs of return transport to Germany are not covered. The European Commission adds that the European Health Insurance Card will not help with rescue and repatriation in another EU country. The Federal Foreign Office warns that travelers without adequate cover must, as a rule, pay local costs, a rescue flight included, themselves.

France

France’s social security liaison body CLEISS states that the Assurance maladie does not pay for a rapatriement sanitaire. The foreign ministry adds that French embassies will not pay the costs of illness, serious accident, medical evacuation or death abroad, which remain with the traveler or the insurer, and that medical repatriation is one of the benefits of an assistance contract. A repatriation for which the state advances the costs is not a right but an exceptional decision of the minister.

What Switzerland pays, and the case of Zug

Swiss basic insurance contributes to emergency care abroad, but on Swiss terms. Outside the EU, EFTA and the UK, it pays for emergency treatment, where a return to Switzerland is medically impossible, up to twice what the treatment would cost in Switzerland. For a hospital stay abroad, the insurer pays at most 90 percent of the Swiss cost, because the cantons carry at least 55 percent of inpatient costs at home.

In the Canton of Zug, the formula leaves the basic insurer with a very small share. In 2026 and 2027 the canton pays 99 percent of inpatient hospital costs in Switzerland and the insurers pay 1 percent, so for Zug residents the Federal Office of Public Health puts the basic insurer’s share of emergency hospital care outside the EU, EFTA and UK at 2 percent of the costs. It names the USA, Canada and Japan as examples of high costs and recommends additional travel or foreign health insurance.

Transport is capped as well. Basic insurance pays half of rescue costs, up to CHF 5,000 a year, and that rule applies only to rescues in Switzerland; for other medically required transport, it pays half, up to CHF 500 a year. The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs sums up the position abroad: basic insurance mostly does not cover rescue, treatment and repatriation costs abroad, or only in part, and only what is agreed in the insurance contract is binding.

What Medicare pays in the United States

Medicare usually does not cover health care while you travel outside the U.S., and it generally will not pay for return ambulance trips home. The CDC adds that Medicare does not cover medical evacuation. The exceptions concern cases in which a foreign hospital is closer than the nearest US hospital able to treat the condition. Medigap plans C, D, F, G, M and N may pay 80 percent of certain emergency care abroad after a yearly USD 250 deductible, up to USD 50,000 over a lifetime and only for emergencies in the first 60 days of a trip. For US health plans in general, the State Department’s summary is short: most do not pay to bring you back to the United States.

Who decides, and what travel insurance pays

Where a travel policy covers repatriation, the insurer decides. The CDC states that the decision to medically evacuate is at the discretion of the insurance company, not of the traveler. Allianz Care goes ahead only when the treating doctor and its own doctor agree, and reserves the right to decline all costs of a transport it did not organize.

For a family, that has two consequences. A flight booked privately before the insurer has agreed may not be reimbursed. And the insurer chooses the destination by medical judgment: home, or the nearest suitable hospital, which is not always the hospital the family would choose. Our guide on when travel insurance will not fly you home goes through the exclusions in detail.

How a repatriation runs

  • Admission first. Rega repatriates patients only once they have been admitted to a hospital, so the first call goes to the local emergency services.
  • The medical decision. The doctors of the insurer or the transport organization speak with the treating doctor and decide whether, when and how the patient travels.
  • Fit to fly. The UK Financial Ombudsman Service notes that a patient cannot return until the treating doctor issues a fit-to-fly certificate. On a scheduled flight, the airline may ask the treating doctors for confirmation in advance.
  • The means of transport. ADAC chooses with the treating doctors between an ambulance jet and a scheduled flight with medical care.
  • The handover. Allianz Care treats a repatriation as complete only when the patient is received into care at the destination, which can mean one more ambulance ride from the airfield to the hospital.

Where Veltracon Medical stands

Veltracon Medical is not an insurer and does not fly aircraft itself. It is a medical membership from Veltracon Lifestyle AG in Zug, with offices in Düsseldorf and Dubai, and its 24/7 medical hotline is part of every membership. When a member falls ill abroad, medical coordinators and emergency doctors assess the situation by phone, in the member’s language, and the hotline organizes the medical repatriation: the medically supervised return to the member’s home or to a country of their choice. From a hazardous situation, it deploys teams for a medical evacuation. Where an intensive-care flight is needed, our sister brand Shadow ICU arranges air ambulance flights.

The membership pays for that coordination, not for the flight: transport and treatment are charged by the provider, and membership does not replace travel or health insurance. The Longevity membership includes an insurance advisory that helps members find a suitable provider to cover these emergency services. Contact us if you would like to know how a return home would be organized for you and your family.

About this article

This guide quotes governments, insurers and transport operators; all sources were accessed in November 2026. The costs named are their figures, not prices of Veltracon Medical. It is general information, not medical, legal or insurance advice.

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