Countries That Spend the Most of Their Budget on the Military 2023
Source:
World Bank
Key Findings
🏆
Ukraine leads in Military spending (% of government expenditure) with 49.09 in 2023.
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Average Military spending (% of government expenditure) in 2023: 19.55 · median: 15.01.
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Gap in 2023: Ukraine is 3.9× larger than Niger.
About This Dataset
Countries That Spend the Most of Their Budget on the Military 2023
The 20 countries that devote the largest share of total government spending to the military in 2023. Ukraine is highest at 49.09% of government spending, ahead of Belarus at 48.24% and Saudi Arabia at 22.55%. This is different from military spending as a share of GDP: it shows what the state chooses to buy with the money it has. Data covers 147 countries.
Analysis
The median country spends 5.01% of its budget on defence, so Ukraine commits about 9.8 times as large a share. 28 of the 147 countries measured put a tenth or more of all government spending into the military.
Data Insights
Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart
Methodology & source
- Data source
- World Bank
- Coverage
- 20 entities · 2023 · 20 observations
- Measure
- Military spending (% of government expenditure)
- Last updated
- 31 August 2026
- Compiled by
- The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
How the figures are calculated
- Values use the measure and unit named on this page. Consult the dataset description and cited source for coverage, definitions and any unit conversions. Displayed values may be rounded for readability.
- Entities are ranked highest-first on their value in 2023.
Data Sources & References
All external sources cited in this dataset
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