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The 10 Countries That Spend the Most on Defense |
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SIPRI released its 2025 figures in April. The world spent a record $2.89 trillion on its militaries — 2.5% of everything it produced, the highest share since 2009. It set that record even though the biggest spender, the United States, cut back. Europe filled the gap. |
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Source: SIPRI, Trends in World Military Expenditure 2025 (released April 2026). Spending in current US dollars; regions are SIPRI totals. |
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| What's Surprising |
The United States cut its military budget in 2025. Spending fell 7.5% to $954 billion. It is still the largest on Earth by far, a third of the global total. But the direction is new: the world's biggest spender pulled back.
Global spending rose anyway, to a record $2.89 trillion, because everyone else pushed harder. Germany added 24% to reach $114 billion, the biggest budget in Western Europe. Spain rose 50%, Poland 23%, Italy 20%.
Ukraine is the extreme. It spent $84.1 billion — 40% of its entire economy, more than France or Japan. No country devotes a larger share of what it makes to its own defense.
| What's Not Surprising |
America is still in a class of its own. It spends more than the next six countries — China, Russia, Germany, India, Britain, and Ukraine — combined. A 7.5% cut barely dents that lead.
The top of the list rarely moves. The United States, China, and Russia together account for 51% of all military spending. Add Germany and India and five countries cover 58%.
The rich and the threatened spend the most. The big economies, the states along Russia's border, the Gulf. Money follows fear, and it has for decades.
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$2.89T The world's military spending in 2025, a record. That is 2.5% of global output — the highest share since 2009. |
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$954B US military spending — still a third of the world's total, even after a 7.5% cut, the only fall among the five biggest spenders. |
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$1.48T What the US, China, and Russia spend together — 51% of the planet's entire military budget. |
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+24% Germany's one-year jump, to $114 billion — now the biggest military budget in Western Europe. |
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40% The share of its economy Ukraine spends on its military — the heaviest defense burden of any country on Earth. |
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The next SIPRI count lands in spring 2027. Two things to watch. Whether the American cut holds or reverses — one year is not a trend. And whether Europe keeps surging: NATO's members have agreed to lift defense spending toward 5% of GDP by 2035, far above the 2% floor most only just reached. Europe already spends $864 billion to America's $954 billion. If both trends hold, it soon spends more. We'll be watching. |
