Which Countries Spend the Most on Their Military as a Share of GDP?
Ukraine spends 40% of its GDP on defence. Israel, Russia and Saudi Arabia are above 6%. Military burden by country, and why it matters more than raw dollars.
Raw spending tells you who has the biggest military budget. Spending as a share of GDP, which SIPRI calls the “military burden”, tells you something different: how much of its economy a country is prepared to give up for defence. By that measure, the ranking looks very different.
| # | Country | Share of GDP |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🇺🇦 Ukraine | 40% |
| 2 | 🇮🇱 Israel | 7.8% |
| 3 | 🇷🇺 Russia | 7.5% |
| 4 | 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia | 6.5% |
| 5 | 🇵🇱 Poland | 4.5% |
| 6 | 🇺🇸 United States | 3.1% |
| 7 | 🇵🇰 Pakistan | 2.9% |
| 8 | 🇰🇷 South Korea | 2.6% |
| 9 | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | 2.4% |
| 10 | 🇮🇳 India | 2.3% |
| 11 | 🇩🇪 Germany | 2.3% |
| 12 | 🇮🇷 Iran | 2.1% |
| 13 | 🇪🇸 Spain | 2.1% |
| 14 | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | 2.1% |
| 15 | 🇫🇷 France | 2% |
Ukraine: a war economy
Ukraine devoted an estimated 40% of its GDP to its military in 2025. No other country comes close. That is the burden of a country fighting a full-scale war on its own territory, and it is only possible with large amounts of foreign financial support keeping the rest of the state running. It also excludes the weapons donated by Ukraine’s partners.
The 6% club
Three countries in our dataset spend more than 6% of GDP:
- Israel: 7.8%, after two years of war in Gaza and conflict with Iran and Hezbollah
- Russia: 7.5%, as it sustains the war in Ukraine
- Saudi Arabia: an estimated 6.5%, a long-standing high level for one of the world’s largest arms importers
For context, during the Cold War the United States typically spent 5% to 10% of GDP on its military. Today it spends 3.1%, which is still above most of its allies.
Europe moves up
Poland stands out among NATO members at 4.5% of GDP. It has been on a buying spree since 2022, ordering tanks, artillery, rocket launchers and aircraft, and its spending grew 23% in 2025. NATO allies agreed at their June 2025 summit in The Hague to raise defence and security-related spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, with at least 3.5% for core defence. Most of Europe is still well short of that: Germany is at 2.3%, France at 2.0% and Italy at 1.9%. Read more in Europe’s rearmament in numbers.
Low burden, high capability
A low share is not necessarily a sign of weakness. China spends only about 1.7% of GDP, but because its economy is so large, that is still an estimated $336 billion, the second-largest budget in the world. Japan, at 1.4%, has long kept spending near 1% of GDP by policy, but is now in the middle of a significant build-up: its spending rose 9.7% in 2025.
What military burden tells you
Burden is the better measure of political commitment and of strain. A country spending 2% can sustain that indefinitely; one spending 7% or more is making serious trade-offs against health, education and investment. It is also a rough signal of threat perception. The countries at the top of this list are almost all either at war or living next to a country they see as an immediate danger.
To see what that spending buys, compare countries side by side: Russia vs Ukraine, Iran vs Israel or Russia vs Poland.