Countries by Military Spending Per Capita 2023

About This Dataset

Military spending per person in 2023, in US dollars, according to SIPRI. Measuring defence budgets per capita rather than in total reveals how heavily a country's population is taxed to fund its armed forces, which differs sharply from the largest-spender rankings.

✨ AI Insight

Israel tops the list at nearly $3,000 per person, reflecting its high defence burden relative to a small population. The United States is second at $2,694 - the only large-population country near the top, which is why it dwarfs everyone in total spending. Wealthy, security-focused states dominate the rest: Singapore ($2,195), Saudi Arabia ($2,052) and Kuwait ($1,799). Ukraine ($1,762) appears high because of its wartime mobilisation. Strikingly, four of the top ten are Nordic or Northern European - Norway ($1,584), Denmark ($1,378) and Finland ($1,325) - showing how heightened regional tensions have pushed prosperous democracies to spend heavily per head. The list is populated by rich or heavily militarised states rather than the world's biggest overall spenders.

Source: SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute)

Key Findings

Auto-computed highlights from this dataset

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Israel leads with 2,997 in All Time.

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Average value in All Time: 1,905 · median: 1,781.

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Gap in All Time: Israel is 2.4× larger than Oman.