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Mapped: World’s Top 40 Largest Military Budgets

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A map of the top 40 largest military budgets in the world in 2022

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Mapped: World’s Top 40 Largest Military Budgets

In the final year of World War II, the U.S. spent about 38% of its GDP on its military. When adjusted for inflation, the military budget over those four years of war came to a staggering $4.1 trillion in 2020 dollars.

Almost 80 years later, modern day military spending isn’t much of a far cry from World War II budgets. The top spenders have continued to increase their military capabilities, while war in Ukraine has caused countries in the region to re-evaluate their budgets as well.

In 2022, global military budgets hit an all-time high of $2.2 trillion, according to data released by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the eighth consecutive year of increase. This post looks at the top 40 largest military budgets in the world.

The Largest Military Budgets in 2022

The United States accounts for almost 40% of global military expenditures, with its 2022 spend coming to $877 billion.

Here are the top 40 largest military budgets in the world for 2022 in U.S. dollars:

RankCountryMilitary Budget (Billions)% of World
Military Spend
1🇺🇸 U.S.$876.939.0%
2🇨🇳 China$292.013.0%
3🇷🇺 Russia$86.43.9%
4🇮🇳 India$81.43.6%
5🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia$75.03.3%
6🇬🇧 UK$68.53.1%
7🇩🇪 Germany$55.82.5%
8🇫🇷 France$53.62.4%
9🇰🇷 South Korea$46.42.1%
10🇯🇵 Japan$46.02.1%
11🇺🇦 Ukraine$44.02.0%
12🇮🇹 Italy$33.51.5%
13🇦🇺 Australia$32.31.4%
14🇨🇦 Canada$26.91.2%
15🇮🇱 Israel$23.41.0%
16🇪🇸 Spain$20.30.9%
17🇧🇷 Brazil$20.20.9%
18🇵🇱 Poland$16.60.7%
19🇳🇱 Netherlands$15.60.7%
20🇶🇦 Qatar$15.40.7%
21🇹🇼 Taiwan$12.50.6%
22🇸🇬 Singapore$11.70.5%
23🇹🇷 Türkiye$10.60.5%
24🇵🇰 Pakistan$10.30.5%
25🇨🇴 Colombia$9.90.4%
26🇩🇿 Algeria$9.10.4%
27🇮🇩 Indonesia$9.00.4%
28🇲🇽 Mexico$8.50.4%
29🇳🇴 Norway$8.40.4%
30🇰🇼 Kuwait$8.20.4%
31🇬🇷 Greece$8.10.4%
32🇸🇪 Sweden$7.70.3%
33🇧🇪 Belgium$6.90.3%
34🇮🇷 Iran$6.80.3%
35🇨🇭 Switzerland$6.10.3%
36🇴🇲 Oman$5.80.3%
37🇹🇭 Thailand$5.70.3%
38🇨🇱 Chile$5.60.2%
39🇩🇰 Denmark$5.50.2%
40🇷🇴 Romania$5.20.2%

China, ranked second in absolute terms, accounts for another 13% of world military expenditure at $292 billion.

Russia, India and Saudi Arabia round out the top five biggest military budgets in 2022. Add in the UK to the mix (#6 rank), and these countries all had military expenditures that made up at least 3% of global spend.

Comparatively, the lowest budgets on the top 40 ranged include Romania at $5.2 billion, Denmark at $5.5 billion, and Chile at $5.6 billion. They each account for just 0.2% of the world’s military budgets in 2022, and of course there are many countries with even smaller spends.

Largest Military Budget Increases in 2022

Russia’s position as the third-largest military spender is a recent development, as the country’s military spend had a 9% increase between 2021 and 2022, according to SIPRI estimates.

On the other side of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine was the top 40 military budget with the largest annual increase in 2022, surging nearly six and a half times above its 2021 expenditures.

Country% Change
(2021-2022)
Rank Change
(2021-2022)
🇺🇦 Ukraine640%+25
🇶🇦 Qatar27%+2
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia16%+3
🇧🇪 Belgium13%0
🇳🇱 Netherlands12%0
🇸🇪 Sweden12%-1
🇵🇱 Poland11%0
🇷🇺 Russia9.2%+2
🇩🇰 Denmark8.8%+3
🇪🇸 Spain7.3%-1
🇳🇴 Norway6.2%0
🇮🇳 India6.0%-1
🇯🇵 Japan5.9%-1
🇮🇷 Iran4.6%+5
🇨🇳 China4.2%0
🇬🇧 UK3.7%-2
🇨🇦 Canada3.0%-1
🇸🇬 Singapore2.8%+1
🇩🇪 Germany2.3%0
🇮🇩 Indonesia1.3%0
🇨🇴 Colombia1.1%-1
🇺🇸 U.S.0.7%0
🇫🇷 France0.6%-2
🇬🇷 Greece0.6%-1
🇨🇭 Switzerland0.4%-1
🇹🇼 Taiwan0.4%-1
🇦🇺 Australia0.3%-1
🇵🇰 Pakistan-2.0%-3
🇰🇷 South Korea-2.5%+1
🇷🇴 Romania-2.6%+1
🇴🇲 Oman-3.0%+1
🇩🇿 Algeria-3.7%-1
🇮🇱 Israel-4.2%-1
🇮🇹 Italy-4.5%-1
🇨🇱 Chile-6.2%-3
🇧🇷 Brazil-7.9%-1
🇲🇽 Mexico-9.7%0
🇰🇼 Kuwait-11%-4
🇹🇭 Thailand-11%-5
🇹🇷 Türkiye-26%-6

Ukraine’s dramatic increase represents the highest single-year jump ever recorded by SIPRI, painting a vivid before-and-after picture of a nation engaged in conflict.

Although no other country comes close in matching Ukraine’s surge in defense spending, Qatar saw a substantial increase of 27% over the last year, marking a continuing trend over the last decade of significantly bolstering its military.

Additionally, Saudi Arabia, along with four European nations (Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Poland), have registered year-over-year changes of over 10%.

On the flipside, 13 of the nations with the largest military budgets decreased spend from 2021, including top 15 spenders such as South Korea, Italy, and Israel.

The largest drop was seen by Türkiye, with an estimated 26% reduction in military budget. This drop may be linked to Türkiye’s inflation problem, which saw prices rise 72.3% in 2022—effectively decreasing the purchasing power of their currency in relative terms to other nations.

The Specter of War in Europe

With an ongoing conflict in the region and large financial powerhouses, its no surprise that eight of the top 10 countries with the most significant increases in military spending are located in Europe.

Consequently, European military budgets have reached levels not witnessed since the end of the Cold War.

And amid escalating geopolitical concerns, countries in Asia such as India, Japan, and China have also ramped up their defense spending. This is an indication of simmering global flashpoints such as India and China’s border skirmishes, the longstanding South China Sea territorial conflict, and concerns surrounding Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Data note: SIPRI’s military expenditure data collection began in 1949, thus its records do not account for all expenditure that occurred during both World Wars.

Please see SIPRI’s methodologies page for more details on how they collect their data and create estimates.

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Demographics

Ranked: Countries Where Youth are the Most Unhappy, Relative to Older Generations

Conventional wisdom says that young adults (those below 30) tend to be the happiest demographic—but this is not true for these countries.

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Countries with the Biggest Happiness Gaps Between Generations

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” — Tom Bodett

Measuring happiness is tricky business, more so when taking into account how different regions, cultures, and faiths define it. Nevertheless, the World Happiness Report attempts to distill being happy into a single score out of 10, and then ranks countries by their average score.

We’ve visualized the high-level findings from the latest happiness report in this series of maps. However, the report also dives deeper into other significant trends in the data, such as a growing disparity in happiness between age groups within countries themselves.

In the chart above, we list countries by the biggest gaps in happiness ranks between young adults (<30) and older adults (60+). A higher number indicates a larger gap, and that the youth are far unhappier than their older counterparts.

Where are Youth Unhappier than Older Adults?

Mauritius ranks first on this list, with a massive 57 place gap between older adult and youth happiness. The 1.26 million-inhabited island nation briefly reached high income status in 2020, but the pandemic hit hard, hurting its key tourism sector, and affecting jobs.

The country’s youth unemployment rate spiked to close to 25% that year, but has since been on the decline. Like residents on many similarly-populated islands, the younger demographic often moves abroad in search of more opportunities.

RankCountryYouth Happiness RankOlder Adult
Happiness Rank
Happiness Gap
1🇲🇺 Mauritius852857
2🇺🇸 U.S.621052
3🇨🇦 Canada58850
4🇺🇿 Uzbekistan712249
5🇨🇳 China793049
6🇯🇵 Japan733637
7🇲🇳 Mongolia865333
8🇩🇿 Algeria936231
9🇱🇾 Libya805030
10🇸🇬 Singapore542628
11🇰🇿 Kazakhstan694227
12🇵🇭 Philippines704327
13🇱🇦 Laos1047727
14🇩🇪 Germany472126
15🇪🇸 Spain552926
16🇲🇹 Malta573126
17🇧🇭 Bahrain775126
18🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan815526
19🇲🇷 Mauritania1199326
20🇹🇩 Chad1209426

Conventional wisdom says, and data somewhat correlates, that young adults (those below 30) tend to be the happiest demographic. Happiness then decreases through middle age and starts increasing around 60. However, the above countries are digressing from the pattern, with older generations being much happier than young adults.

That older generations are happier, by itself, is not a bad thing. However, that younger adults are so much unhappier in the same country can point to several unique stresses that those aged below 30 are facing.

For example, in the U.S. and Canada—both near the top of this list—many young adults feel like they have been priced out of owning a home: a once key metric of success.

Climate anxieties are also high, with worries about the future of the world they’ll inhabit. Finally, persistent economic inequities are also weighing on the younger generation, with many in that cohort feeling like they will never be able to afford to retire.

All of this comes alongside a rising loneliness epidemic, where those aged 18–25 report much higher rates of loneliness than the general population.

Where does this data come from?

Source: The World Happiness Report which leverages data from the Gallup World Poll.

Methodology: A nationally representative group of approximately 1,000 people per country are asked to evaluate their life on a scale of 0–10. Scores are averaged across generations per country over three years. Countries are ranked by their scores out of 10.

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