Countries with the Biggest Military Budgets 2021

About This Dataset

Countries with the Biggest Military Budgets 2021
Countries ranked by military spending (USD billion) in 2021, using World Bank figures for the 155 countries that reported that year. United States leads on 806.2, ahead of China (285.9) and India (76.3). Military spending in US dollars, on the SIPRI definition, covering armed forces, defence ministries, paramilitary forces and military pensions. Several large spenders publish little detail, and China's figure in particular is an estimate.
Analysis

United States (806.2), China (285.9) and India (76.3) take the top three. Across the twenty shown, values run from 806.2 down to 11.6, a spread of 794.6. Most of that spread sits between first and second alone (520.3 of 794.6), so United States stands apart from the rest of the table. No other country in the table reaches half the leading figure of 806.2. United States stood at 778.4 in 2020, so its figure rose by 27.8 over the year. United States also came first in 2020. Of the 20 in this table that also reported in 2020, 17 recorded a higher figure than the year before and 3 a lower one. The largest single move was China, from 258.0 to 285.9. The chart shows the twenty highest of 155 reporting countries, so it describes the top of the distribution rather than the world average.

Source:  World Bank

Key Findings

🏆
United States leads in Military Spending (USD Billion) with 806.20 in 2021.
📊
Average Military Spending (USD Billion) in 2021: 90  ·  median: 44.
↔️
Gap in 2021: United States is 69.5× larger than Pakistan.

Countries with the Biggest Military Budgets 2021

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Data Insights

Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart

Admin
Data Points
20
20 categories  ·  1 year
Top Value
806.20
United States
Military Spending (USD Billion) · 2021
Metrics
1
Military Spending (USD Billion)
Period
2021
Single year snapshot

Methodology & source

Data source
World Bank
Coverage
20 entities · 2021 · 20 observations
Measure
Military Spending (USD Billion)
Last updated
7 September 2026
Compiled by
The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
How the figures are calculated
  • Values are shown as reported by the source. Nothing is rescaled, rebased or converted — the only changes are thousand separators and decimals shown to two places.
  • Entities are ranked highest-first on their value in 2021.

Rankings & Full Data

20 records · Military Spending (USD Billion) · ranked by 2021

✓ 20 sourced
# Category 2021 Source
🥇 United States 806.20
🥈 China 285.90
🥉 India 76.30
4 Russia 65.90
5 United Kingdom 65.10
6 Saudi Arabia 63.20
7 France 58.70
8 Germany 56.50
9 Japan 53.60
10 South Korea 50.90
11 Italy 36.20
12 Australia 32.70
13 Canada 25.40
14 Israel 24.30
15 Spain 19.50
16 Brazil 19.20
17 Poland 15.30
18 Turkey 15.30
19 Netherlands 14.40
20 Pakistan 11.60

Data Sources & References

All external sources cited in this dataset

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