How Much Does the EU Spend on Defense in 2025?
The 27 European Union member states spent a combined $430.4bn on defense in 2025, equal to 15.7% of global military expenditure.
Key takeaways
- EU members spent a combined $430.4bn on defense in 2025.
- That total equals 15.7% of world military spending in 2025.
- The figure sums all 27 of 27 current EU member states for 2025 — none were missing.
- This is defensebudget.org's own calculation from SIPRI country-level data, not a total SIPRI publishes itself.
- The EU total and the NATO total are built from different, overlapping country lists and are not interchangeable.
Verdict
EU member states spent $430.4bn on defense in 2025, or 15.7% of world military expenditure — a figure built by summing all 27 of 27 current EU members' 2025 SIPRI data, not a total SIPRI publishes itself.
At a glance
| EU total defense spending | $430.4bn2025, constant 2024 USD |
|---|---|
| Share of world spending | 15.7%of world military expenditure, 2025 |
| EU members | 27 |
| Members included | 27 of 27no missing data |
| Data as of | April 2026SIPRI Military Expenditure Database |
The 27 member states of the European Union spent a combined $430.4bn on defense in 2025. That figure is defensebudget.org's own calculation from SIPRI country-level data — SIPRI does not publish an EU total directly — and it equals 15.7% of world military expenditure for the year.
01 How much did the EU spend on defense in 2025?
All 27 current EU members combined for $430.4bn in defense spending in 2025, measured in SIPRI constant 2024 US dollars. This is not a figure SIPRI itself reports — SIPRI's dataset is organized by country, not by political bloc — so the total shown here is defensebudget.org's sum of the 27 individual country figures for the year.
Includes all 27 of 27 current EU member states for 2025 — none were excluded for missing data.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| EU total defense spending, 2025 | $430.4bn |
| EU members | 27 |
| Members included in total | 27 of 27 |
| Share of world military spending | 15.7% |
02 How the $430.4bn total was calculated
The total is built by summing each EU member's individual 2025 defense expenditure as reported in SIPRI's country-level data, converted to constant 2024 US dollars for consistency. Every one of the bloc's 27 current members — from the largest spenders down to the smallest — is included; none were dropped for missing or unavailable data in this instance.
Our calculation from SIPRI country-level data. Not SIPRI's own published total.
03 EU spending as a share of world military expenditure
At $430.4bn, the EU total accounts for 15.7% of world military expenditure in 2025. That share represents a substantial but clear minority of the world's defense budgets, without implying anything about the relative capability or readiness of any individual country or bloc.
04 Which countries make up the EU total
The $430.4bn figure sums all 27 current EU member states, with no countries excluded for lack of 2025 data. Because the total is a straight sum across the full membership, it mixes economies and defense budgets of very different sizes — from the bloc's largest military spenders to its smallest — into a single bloc-wide number.
- Coverage — 27 of 27 current EU members are included in the 2025 total.
- Missing data — none; no EU member was excluded from this calculation.
- Currency basis — figures are expressed in SIPRI constant 2024 US dollars, so the total is comparable across countries and over time.
05 EU vs. NATO: why the totals differ
The EU and NATO defense spending totals are frequently confused, but they are built from different, overlapping sets of countries. The EU total on this page sums the 27 current EU member states; NATO's total sums NATO's member states, a different alliance with its own membership list. Because the two groupings are not identical, their totals are not interchangeable, and neither figure should be read as a measure of either institution's overall military strength — both are simply sums of national defense budgets across a defined group of countries.
Sum of all 27 current European Union members for 2025.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How much does the EU spend on defense?
- The 27 EU member states spent a combined $430.4bn on defense in 2025, per defensebudget.org's calculation from SIPRI country-level data.
- What share of world military spending does the EU account for?
- The EU's $430.4bn total equals 15.7% of world military expenditure in 2025.
- Does SIPRI publish an official EU total?
- No. SIPRI reports spending by country, not by bloc. The $430.4bn EU figure is defensebudget.org's own sum of SIPRI's 2025 country-level data for all 27 current EU members.
- Is the EU total the same as the NATO total?
- No. The EU and NATO have different, overlapping memberships, so their spending totals are calculated from different country sets and should not be treated as interchangeable.
defensebudget.org
Defense spending data, sourced from SIPRI
defensebudget.org tracks military expenditure for 160 countries using the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. Pages are generated from that dataset and reviewed before publication.