Global Military Spending
SIPRI tracks military expenditure reported by governments and estimated where transparency is low. World military expenditure reached $2,887 billion in 2025 — about $2.9 trillion, up 2.9% in real terms and the eleventh consecutive annual rise, bringing the global military burden to 2.5% of world GDP, its highest since 2009. That money goes on personnel, operations, procurement, and R&D directed at armed forces — a sum larger than the entire GDP of many individual countries. The United States alone accounts for a large double-digit share of the total, while China, Russia, India, and UK–Saudi tier fill out the top cluster. Spending is not the same as combat effectiveness: exchange rates, conscription vs volunteer costs, and what each state classifies as "defense" all distort simple rankings.
Since January 1st
Year progress
68.9% of the year
What the Global Military Spending counter represents
MoneyPerSecond Editorial·Data last reviewed: August 26, 2026
SIPRI's $2.24 trillion global total is smaller than world GDP but larger than the GDP of all but a handful of countries—context that makes the per-second figure feel concrete next to corporate revenue pages. NATO's 2% of GDP spending targets (where applicable) shape political debate but do not map 1:1 into SIPRI lines.
Ukraine-related supplemental appropriations in the US and EU, plus off-budget procurement in several states, illustrate how *war shocks* move spending faster than peacetime baselines. SIPRI may lag recognition; check their release notes for the year covered.
Personnel costs vs weapons procurement inflate differently under inflation: a volunteer army with high pay (US) vs conscript-heavy structures (some peers) changes "bang per buck" comparisons that spending totals hide. Our counter does not adjust for purchasing power parity on military goods.
Opportunity-cost discussions belong in civics class: every dollar to missiles is not spent on health or education in the same budget, but those tradeoffs are national political choices, not automatic accounting identities. Use this page beside World GDP to express military spend as a percent of global output (~2%).
Time Breakdown
$91,546.17
per second
$5,492,770.17
per minute
$329,566,210.05
per hour
$7.91B
per day
$2.89T
per year
How is this calculated?
// Annual amount
$2.89T
÷ 31,536,000 seconds/year
// Per second
= $91,546.17/sec
The counter starts from January 1st of the current year and accumulates at a rate of $91,546.17 every second, based on Global Military Spending's estimated annual figure of $2.89T.
Methodology
The $2,887 billion figure is SIPRI's global total for 2025 in current US dollars, published in its April 2026 fact sheet; SIPRI revises series when better data appears. Its consistent definition is what makes cross-country comparison possible — national budgets classify differently, and NATO uses another definition again for its 2% guideline, so the same country can have several defensible spending figures. We spread that annual aggregate evenly across seconds for visualization — actual outlays accrue unevenly across fiscal calendars. Pension costs for veterans, some homeland-security lines, and off-budget items may be excluded depending on national reporting; read SIPRI methodology notes for scope.
While you were here
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While You Were on This Page
Data Sources
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
https://www.sipri.org/databases/milexCited figure
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Military Expenditure Database (2026): $2,887 billion for Calendar year 2025, as reported by the publisher. Retrieved 8 September 2026.
https://www.sipri.org/databases/milexDisclaimer
Military spending figures are estimates compiled by SIPRI and may not capture all defense-related expenditures.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does the world spend on military per second?
SIPRI put world military expenditure at $2,887 billion for 2025, which works out to roughly $91,546 per second, or about $7.9 billion per day. The top three spenders — the USA, China and Russia — accounted for $1,480 billion between them, or 51% of the global total.
Which country spends the most on military?
The United States has the largest military budget in the world, accounting for roughly 40% of total global military spending.
Why does the US share of global military spending exceed its share of world GDP?
GDP measures broad economic output; military spending is a policy choice. The US funds global force posture, R&D-intensive platforms, and volunteer personnel costs at a high per-soldier level, so defense absorbs a larger slice of national output than in many peers and an outsized fraction of *world* military budgets.
Does this counter include all war-related government spending?
No. SIPRI uses a standardized definition of military expenditure. Veterans' benefits, humanitarian aid, intelligence agencies, or reconstruction may be recorded elsewhere in government accounts and are not always folded into the headline military total.