The largest military spenders
Military expenditure by country and grouping, US$ billions.
About this data
The United States spent $997bn in 2024 — 3.2 times the next largest spender — before falling 7.5% to $954bn in 2025. Concentration is extreme: the top five accounted for 60% of world spending in 2024, and the top three alone for 51% in 2025.
The largest military spenders
Military expenditure by country and grouping, US$ billions.
Data table
| usd_b | entity | series | source_ref | value_basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 997 | USA (2024) | top_spenders | sipri-fs-2024 | US military expenditure $997bn in 2024 — 3.2x the next largest spender |
| 954 | USA (2025) | top_spenders | sipri-fs-2025 | US military spending $954bn in 2025, 7.5% lower than 2024 |
| 1480 | Top 3 combined (2025) | top_spenders | sipri-2025-pr | USA, China and Russia spent a combined $1,480bn in 2025 — 51% of the global total |
| 1635 | Top 5 combined (2024) | top_spenders | sipri-2024-pr | USA, China, Russia, Germany and India combined $1,635bn in 2024 — 60% of the global total |
Methodology & sources
Last updated: Aug 14, 2026Methodology
Figures are SIPRI military expenditure estimates in constant terms, so the year-on-year changes are real rather than nominal. SIPRI uses a consistent definition across countries — armed forces, defence ministries, paramilitary forces and military space activity — which is broader than most national defence-budget headlines and is why these numbers often exceed the figures governments publish themselves. OMITTED: China’s standalone 2024 figure is only expressible as "$997bn ÷ 3.2" (≈$312bn), a derivation from a published ratio rather than a published value, so it is not charted. Russia, Germany and India standalone figures were not retrieved and are not inferred from the group totals. CAVEAT: the top-spenders chart mixes single-country and grouped entries, and two different years. Read each bar’s label — they are not a like-for-like ranking. Context: 2025 was the eleventh consecutive annual rise, taking the global military burden to 2.5% of GDP, the highest since 2009. Re-verified 2026-08-10.
Sources
Comparisons are informative, not definitive. See each source for definitions and limits.