How Many People Die From Bladder Cancer Every Year?
Bladder cancer kills about 220,600 people a year, around 600 a day. Global, UK and US figures, the smoking link, survival by stage and warning signs.
Picture a man in his late sixties standing in a bathroom one ordinary morning. There is no pain. He feels fine. But the water in the toilet bowl is pink, and the next day it is clear again, so he decides it was probably something he ate. Weeks pass. It happens once more, then not for a while. By the time he mentions it to a GP, the story has been running for months.
That pattern, painless blood in the urine that comes and goes, is the most common first sign of bladder cancer. It is also the reason so many cases are caught later than they should be. The symptom disappears, and people take that as good news.
Bladder cancer is one of the less talked about cancers, yet it kills more people every year than many better-known diseases. Around 170,000 people die every day from all causes, a total you can watch ticking up on our live death counter. Here is where bladder cancer fits in that picture.
The headline number
According to GLOBOCAN 2022, the cancer estimates produced by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), 220,596 people died from bladder cancer worldwide in 2022. In the same year, 614,298 people were newly diagnosed, which made it the ninth most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world.
Broken down over time, that annual toll looks like this:
| Time period | Bladder cancer deaths worldwide |
|---|---|
| Per year | 220,596 |
| Per month | about 18,400 |
| Per week | about 4,240 |
| Per day | about 604 |
| Per hour | about 25 |
| Per minute | one roughly every 2 minutes 23 seconds |
So in the time it takes to make a cup of tea, another person somewhere in the world has died from a cancer that often starts with a symptom people ignore.
To put that in context, all cancers together kill nearly 10 million people a year, as we explain in how many people die from cancer every day. Bladder cancer accounts for a little over 2% of those deaths.
How bladder cancer compares with other cancers
Bladder cancer sits in the middle of the table. It kills far fewer people than lung or bowel cancer, but more than kidney cancer, melanoma or many of the cancers that get regular awareness campaigns.
| Cancer | Deaths worldwide per year (GLOBOCAN 2022) | Deaths per day |
|---|---|---|
| Lung | about 1.8 million | about 4,990 |
| Bowel (colorectal) | about 904,000 | about 2,480 |
| Breast | about 670,000 | about 1,840 |
| Pancreatic | about 467,000 | about 1,280 |
| Prostate | about 397,000 | about 1,090 |
| Leukaemia | about 305,000 | about 840 |
| Bladder | about 220,600 | about 604 |
| Kidney | about 156,000 | about 427 |
| Melanoma | about 58,700 | about 160 |
You can read more about the cancers above and below it in our pieces on lung cancer, prostate cancer and kidney cancer. For the full picture of how cancer ranks among all causes of death, see our cancer cause page.
Where bladder cancer deaths happen
The countries with the most bladder cancer deaths are, unsurprisingly, the countries with the most people. But the order is not exactly the same as the population rankings, and the age-standardised rates tell a different story from the raw counts.
| Country | Bladder cancer deaths (2022) | Of which men | Age-standardised death rate per 100,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 41,367 | 32,525 | 1.3 |
| United States | 17,705 | 12,830 | 1.9 |
| India | 12,353 | 9,754 | 0.87 |
| World | 220,596 | about three in four | 1.8 |
Figures from GLOBOCAN 2022 as published by the World Cancer Research Fund.
A few things stand out. China has the largest number of deaths simply because it has the largest older population. India appears third for deaths even though it is outside the top three for new cases, which hints at later diagnosis and patchier access to treatment. Italy, by contrast, is in the top three for new cases, partly because of very high historic smoking rates and partly because of how cases are recorded.
When researchers adjust for age, the highest rates of bladder cancer show up in Europe, particularly southern and northern Europe. Rich countries with long histories of heavy smoking and industrial chemical use carry a disproportionate share of the disease.
Men are hit much harder than women
Bladder cancer is one of the most lopsided cancers by sex. Roughly 75% of the global burden falls on men. In every major dataset, men are around three times as likely to be diagnosed and to die.
| Group | United States deaths (ACS estimate, 2026) | UK share of bladder cancer deaths (CRUK, 2017 to 2019) |
|---|---|---|
| Men | about 12,640 | 68% |
| Women | about 5,230 | 32% |
| Total | about 17,870 | about 5,555 a year in that period |
Part of the gap is historical: men smoked more, and for longer, through most of the twentieth century. Men were also far more likely to work in the industries linked to bladder cancer, such as dye manufacture, rubber, leather, painting and aluminium smelting.
There is an important twist for women. Although fewer women get bladder cancer, they are more likely to be diagnosed at a later stage. One reason is that blood in the urine in women is often first put down to a urinary tract infection or menstruation, so the investigation that would spot cancer can be delayed. This is one of several reasons women die from different leading causes than men.
Bladder cancer in the UK
Cancer Research UK's latest figures put UK bladder cancer deaths at around 5,900 a year, which is about 16 every day. Bladder cancer is the ninth most common cause of cancer death in the UK.
| UK bladder cancer measure | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Deaths per year (2022 to 2024 average) | around 5,900 | Cancer Research UK |
| Deaths per day | about 16 | Cancer Research UK |
| Rank among UK cancer deaths | 9th | Cancer Research UK |
| Share of deaths in people aged 75 and over | 73% | Cancer Research UK |
| Change in death rates since the early 2000s | down by about 15% | Cancer Research UK |
| Projected deaths per year by 2038 to 2040 | around 7,700 | Cancer Research UK |
The two trend numbers look contradictory, but they are not. Death rates are falling because fewer people smoke and treatment has improved. The number of deaths is still expected to rise because the population is getting older, and bladder cancer is overwhelmingly a disease of later life. Almost three in four bladder cancer deaths in the UK are in people aged 75 or over.
For a wider view of what kills people in Britain, see the leading causes of death in the UK and how many people die in the UK every day.
Bladder cancer in the United States
The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2026 there will be about 84,530 new bladder cancer diagnoses and about 17,870 deaths in the United States. That works out to roughly 49 deaths a day.
The ACS also notes that bladder cancer death rates had been stable for decades but have fallen by about 1.4% a year since 2016. Better treatment for advanced disease, including newer immunotherapy and targeted drugs, is part of that story, along with long-term falls in smoking.
Bladder cancer is also one of the cancers with the largest number of survivors living with it, because so many cases are found early and treated, then monitored for years. That makes it one of the most expensive cancers to manage over a lifetime, with repeated camera checks of the bladder (cystoscopies) for people whose cancer can come back.
Smoking is the biggest cause
If there is one fact worth remembering about bladder cancer, it is this: around half of all bladder cancers are caused by smoking. Cancer Research UK estimates that 49% of UK bladder cancer cases are preventable, with smoking by far the biggest factor.
The mechanism is grimly simple. Chemicals from tobacco smoke are absorbed into the blood, filtered out by the kidneys and then stored in the urine. The lining of the bladder sits in contact with those chemicals for hours at a time, day after day.
| Risk factor | What the evidence shows |
|---|---|
| Smoking | Causes around half of bladder cancers; smokers have roughly three times the risk of never smokers |
| Workplace chemicals | Aromatic amines used in dyes, rubber, leather, textiles and paint; risk can appear decades after exposure |
| Age | Most cases are diagnosed after 65; almost three quarters of UK deaths are in people aged 75 and over |
| Sex | Men are around three times as likely to develop it |
| Previous radiotherapy to the pelvis | Raises risk years later |
| Some chemotherapy drugs | Cyclophosphamide is linked to higher risk |
| Long-term bladder irritation | Repeated infections, long-term catheters and bladder stones |
| Schistosomiasis | A parasitic infection common in parts of Africa and the Middle East, linked to a different type of bladder cancer |
| Arsenic in drinking water | A known cause in some regions with contaminated groundwater |
Stopping smoking cuts the risk, although it takes years to fall back towards that of a never smoker. Smoking also raises the risk of the cancer coming back after treatment, which is why doctors push hard for patients to quit even after diagnosis. Our article on how many people die from smoking every day and our smoking health page cover the wider toll.
The schistosomiasis link is a reminder that bladder cancer is not only a disease of rich, ageing countries. The parasite is carried by freshwater snails, which feature in the deadliest animals in the world.
Survival depends heavily on stage
Bladder cancer is very treatable when it is caught while still confined to the inner lining of the bladder. Once it has grown through the bladder wall or spread to distant organs, the outlook changes sharply.
| Stage at diagnosis (US SEER data, 2015 to 2021) | Five-year relative survival |
|---|---|
| Localised (has not spread outside the bladder) | 72.6% |
| Regional (spread to nearby tissue or lymph nodes) | 40.5% |
| Distant (spread to other organs) | 9.1% |
Relative survival compares people with cancer to people of the same age without it. It does not predict any individual's outcome.
There is a further split inside the "localised" group. Cancers that stay on the inner surface of the bladder (often called non-muscle-invasive) have very high survival but come back often, which means years of regular checks. Cancers that have grown into the muscle of the bladder wall are more dangerous and may need the whole bladder removed, or a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
The warning signs
Bladder cancer gives an early clue more often than many cancers do. The problem is that people do not always act on it.
| Symptom | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Blood in the urine | The most common first sign; often painless and may come and go |
| Needing to pee more often | Can be caused by a tumour irritating the bladder |
| Sudden urgency to pee | Also a sign of irritation |
| Pain or burning when peeing | Often mistaken for an infection |
| Pain in the lower back, side or pelvis | Can suggest more advanced disease |
| Unexplained weight loss or tiredness | General signs that need checking |
Most of these symptoms are caused by something other than cancer, such as an infection or an enlarged prostate. But blood in the urine is never something to ignore, even if it happens only once and even if it goes away by itself. The NHS advises seeing a GP about it, and a referral for tests is common.
Why the numbers are expected to rise
Bladder cancer deaths are projected to rise for the same reason as many cancer deaths: people are living longer. GLOBOCAN-based studies suggest that both cases and deaths will climb steeply by 2040 and beyond, driven mostly by population ageing in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
At the same time, the fall in smoking in many rich countries is slowly pulling rates down there. Bladder cancer has a long delay between exposure and disease, so the smoking habits of the 1970s and 1980s are still shaping today's statistics. The cuts in smoking made since then will keep paying off for decades.
If you want to see how lifestyle risks like smoking translate into a personal estimate, try our Death Clock, which factors in habits including tobacco use, or the risk calculator.
The short version
- Bladder cancer killed about 220,600 people worldwide in 2022, around 604 a day, according to GLOBOCAN 2022.
- In the UK it kills around 5,900 people a year, about 16 a day. In the US, the ACS estimates about 17,870 deaths in 2026.
- Around three in four deaths are in men, and almost three in four UK deaths are in people aged 75 or over.
- Smoking causes around half of all cases.
- Five-year survival is around 73% when found early, falling to about 9% once it has spread to distant organs.
- Painless blood in the urine is the key warning sign. It should always be checked.
While you were reading
This article takes about 12 minutes to read. In that time, roughly 5 people around the world died from bladder cancer, and around 2,000 people died from all causes combined. You can see the running total on our live death counter, and check today's figures on the deaths today page.
Data sources: International Agency for Research on Cancer, GLOBOCAN 2022 (Global Cancer Observatory), as published by the World Cancer Research Fund; Cancer Research UK bladder cancer statistics (mortality 2022 to 2024 and 2017 to 2019, preventable cancers); American Cancer Society, Cancer Facts and Figures 2026 and Key Statistics for Bladder Cancer; US National Cancer Institute SEER Cancer Stat Facts, Bladder Cancer (2015 to 2021 survival). Figures are rounded estimates and the latest years available at the time of writing. This article is for general information only and is not medical advice. If you notice blood in your urine or any of the symptoms above, speak to your GP or doctor.
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