What stands out
- Refractive surgery quoted to international patients at roughly ¥10,000–25,000 for both eyes, against US prices of $1,500–5,000 per eye
- Cataract lens prices collapsed under national volume procurement: monofocal IOLs from ~¥800–1,000, trifocal ~¥10,000
- Surgical volume few countries match: by 2019 China had performed over half of the world's SMILE procedures
Why people watch this space
Eye surgery is the classic comparison-shoppable category of medical travel: domestic prices in the US and UK are high and visible, procedures are short with quick recovery, and the equipment is physically identical worldwide — the same Zeiss and Alcon platforms sit in Chinese operating theatres as in London or Houston clinics. Two things make China’s case unusual. First, scale: myopia is so prevalent that refractive surgery became a high-volume consumer service long ago. Second, a price structure pushed down by both market competition and, for cataracts, national volume procurement of lenses. None of this is treatment advice — suitability for any eye surgery is decided by an ophthalmologist after examination.
The prices, sourced
Refractive surgery (LASIK/SMILE), per both eyes unless noted:
- United States: LASIK runs $1,500–5,000 per eye, with a national average around $2,500 per eye — so $3,000–5,000+ for both eyes is typical.
- United Kingdom: a fixed-price London clinic lists LASIK at £1,925 and SMILE at £2,350 per eye — £3,850–4,700 for both eyes.
- China: booking agencies serving international patients quote standard LASIK at ¥10,000–18,000 and full-SMILE at ¥18,000–25,000+ for both eyes — roughly $1,400–3,500. These are agency-quoted package starting points, not hospital list prices; prescription strength and technology tier move the quote.
Cataract surgery, per eye:
- United States, cash-pay: $3,500–7,000, with GoodRx and All About Vision corroborating the thousands-per-eye range before any premium-lens upgrade.
- China: national volume procurement cut intraocular lens prices hard — after the 2024 rounds, monofocal lenses cost ¥800–1,000, bifocal around ¥2,500 and trifocal around ¥10,000, per People’s Daily. A published chain price list shows a complete aspheric-lens cataract package around ¥7,300 per eye — lens, surgery and facility fees included, roughly a tenth of the US cash figure for a comparable standard procedure.
The scale behind the prices
Volume is the honest explanation for the price gap, not exotic technology. Aier Eye Hospital Group, a listed company, is the world’s largest ophthalmology chain — 352 hospitals and 229 clinics in mainland China and some 970 facilities worldwide, with 16.94 million outpatient visits in 2024 (interview corroboration). On the public side, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center in Guangzhou — profiled in our hospital guide — is the country’s flagship specialist eye hospital. Refractive surgery reflects the same pattern: by 2019 China had already performed about one million SMILE procedures, nearly half the global total, and Zhongshan surgeons described more than half of the world’s then-two-million SMILE eyes as Chinese.
Read the numbers carefully
- Agency-quoted “from” prices are starting points. High prescriptions, thin corneas or premium options change the quote; an in-person assessment is mandatory before any figure is firm.
- Quality assurance is per-surgeon and per-centre, not per-country. The questions that matter are surgeon case volume, the exact platform (e.g. VisuMax for SMILE) and English-speaking follow-up — not the flag outside.
- Refractive surgery needs follow-up checks in the days and weeks after surgery. Either plan the trip length around them or line up post-operative care at home — and remember complications back home are priced at home.
- Lens procurement prices are for the lens alone; the ¥7,300 example is a full package at one chain, and premium-lens totals run higher everywhere.
- Practical logistics are covered in our guides: how a first Chinese hospital visit works, paying with foreign cards, insurance realities — most US/UK insurers will not fund planned surgery abroad, so eye care abroad is a self-pay decision by default.
The honest summary: eye surgery is the most verifiable of China’s price gaps — same devices, measurable outcomes, published lens prices — which is exactly why it features so often in the videos our library collects. Whether any individual is a surgical candidate is a question this site does not answer.