How is Global Defence Spending constructed?

Procedure and scope

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.