Overseas mothers who are not entitled to free NHS care are running up maternity bills of more than £15.6million every year, figures obtained by GB News have revealed.
The exclusive data also show hospitals recover barely £1 for every six spent on the care.
Trusts are sending invoices to thousands of foreign women after delivering their babies, but most are never settled, leaving hospitals chasing debts.
In Britain, maternity care is always treated as immediately necessary, so expectant mothers who are not eligible for free treatment cannot be turned away and are billed after the birth instead.
Critics of so-called health tourism have long warned that the free-at-the-point-of-use NHS is being exploited by visitors who have no intention of paying for their care.
An NHS spokesperson said: “The NHS is legally required to provide care to those needing urgent treatment. All NHS providers must take steps to recover costs from those who are not entitled to free care in order to protect taxpayers’ money, with payment for non-urgent treatment always secured in advance.”
Ministers pledged a decade ago to claw back up to £500million a year from overseas patients, but the figures show only a fraction of the cost of maternity care is ever recovered.
Figures obtained by GB News from NHS hospital trusts under Freedom of Information laws show they billed overseas visitors £48.8million for maternity care in the last three years.
The amount works out to more than £300,000 every week or £15.6million each year.
Of the £47.1million billed by the trusts, only £7.4million has been paid, less than one pound in six.
Some £30.4million is still owed, and trusts have written off more than £8million as money they will never see.
The real bill is likely even higher, as only 85 of the 119 trusts with maternity services provided figures.
Many said they could not separate maternity charges from other overseas invoices.
Barts Health in east London billed overseas mothers £8million, more than any other trust, but has recovered just £326,739, or one pound in every 25.
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Other trusts with the largest totals included Coventry and Warwickshire (£2.7million), Mid and South Essex (£1.9million), University Hospitals of North Midlands (£1.8million), the Royal Free London (£1.8million) and King’s College Hospital (£1.6million).
University Hospitals of Leicester has written off £712,000 of the £1.6million it charged overseas visitors for maternity care.
In 19 trusts, less than a 10th of the money billed has been paid.
East Lancashire Hospitals has collected just £51,097 of the £849,749 it billed, with nothing written off and the rest still outstanding.
The single largest unpaid bill was £66,256, owed to Guy’s and St Thomas’ in London, ahead of £53,844 at Imperial College Healthcare.
Among the 66 trusts that gave figures for every year, the value of maternity charges raised against overseas visitors rose by more than a fifth, from £13.4million in 2023/24 to £16.4million in the year to March 2026.
York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals admitted that some patients will be chargeable but were never identified, and that their number is unknown.
Under NHS charging rules, overseas visitors not entitled to free hospital treatment must pay, but maternity care must never be withheld because a woman cannot pay in advance.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “Overseas visitors – and those who are not lawfully settled here – are required to contribute towards any treatment they receive on the NHS.
“The NHS recovers tens of millions of pounds every year from overseas visitors, and every NHS Trust is legally responsible for recovering these costs from chargeable patients.”
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