Military Share of Government Budget by Country 2024

About This Dataset

This chart ranks countries by military spending as a share of total government expenditure in 2024, showing how much of the state budget goes to defence rather than to health, education, pensions and everything else combined.

✨ AI Insight

Ukraine devotes 54% of all government spending to the military, meaning more than half the state budget goes to defence, with Belarus close behind on 50.7%. These two figures are extraordinary: no other country listed exceeds 30%. For Ukraine it reflects a state at war, while Belarus's near-identical share comes without active conflict, making it arguably the more remarkable entry. Myanmar's 29.1% is a junta funding a civil war against its own population. Below them sit the Gulf states and Israel, all between 19% and 23%. Singapore's 20.1% is the outlier, a wealthy, peaceful city-state that maintains heavy defence spending as deliberate deterrence policy.

Source: World Bank (SIPRI)

Key Findings

Auto-computed highlights from this dataset

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Ukraine leads with 54 in 2024.

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Average value in 2024: 28 · median: 22.

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Gap in 2024: Ukraine is 2.9× larger than Russia.