What Is Foreign Military Financing? 2025 World Total ($2.74tn)
Foreign Military Financing (FMF) is a U.S. government program that funds allied nations' purchases of American defense equipment, set against a 2025 world military-spending total of $2,740.0bn across 149 countries.
Key takeaways
- Foreign Military Financing (FMF) is a U.S. government program funding allied purchases of American defense equipment — it is not a country's own military budget.
- World military expenditure for 2025 totals $2,740.0bn across 149 SIPRI-reported countries (our calculation from SIPRI country data).
- FMF grants are a small, U.S.-controlled inflow layered on top of a recipient's own defense budget, not part of that country's reported SIPRI figure.
- The $2,740.0bn total is a floor: North Korea has no SIPRI series and several other states have data gaps.
- FMF is authorized annually through the U.S. foreign operations appropriations process, separate from the Pentagon's own budget.
Verdict
Foreign Military Financing is a U.S. program that funds allies' purchases of American defense equipment — a policy instrument distinct from any country's own military budget. Set against the 2025 global backdrop, the world's 149 SIPRI-reported countries spent a combined $2,740.0bn on defense (our calculation, not a SIPRI-published total), a floor figure since some spenders, including North Korea, are absent from the dataset.
At a glance
| 2025 world military expenditure | $2,740.0bnOur calculation from SIPRI country-level data |
|---|---|
| Countries included | 149SIPRI-reported countries, 2025 |
| Currency basis | Constant 2024 USD |
| FMF administered by | U.S. State Dept. & DoD |
| FMF funding type | Grants (primarily), some loans |
Foreign Military Financing (FMF) is a U.S. government program that provides grants and loans to allied and partner nations specifically to purchase American-made defense equipment, services, and training — it is not a measure of a country's own military budget. For scale, worldwide military expenditure across the 149 countries SIPRI reports for 2025 totals $2,740.0bn (our calculation from SIPRI country-level data), the backdrop against which FMF-funded purchases happen.
01 What foreign military financing actually is
FMF is administered by the U.S. State Department and executed by the Department of Defense. It gives eligible foreign governments funding — historically as grants, occasionally as loans — earmarked for buying U.S.-manufactured weapons systems, aircraft, vehicles, and defense services. Recipient countries do not receive cash to spend freely; the funds are tied to acquisitions from the American defense industrial base, and disbursement runs through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) system.
- Grant or loan — the large majority of FMF is issued as non-repayable grants to strategic allies and partners.
- Tied spending — funds must be used to purchase U.S. defense articles and services, not allocated freely by the recipient government.
- Congressional appropriation — FMF is authorized and funded annually through the U.S. foreign operations budget, separate from the Pentagon's own budget.
02 How FMF differs from total military expenditure
The two figures are frequently conflated but measure different things. A country's total military expenditure — the figure SIPRI tracks and defensebudget.org visualizes — is that government's own domestic defense budget: personnel, operations, procurement, and R&D, funded from its own treasury. FMF, by contrast, is money the United States sends to other countries, and it typically represents a small fraction of a recipient's overall defense spending rather than the whole of it.
A recipient country's SIPRI-reported military expenditure figure already reflects its own budget; FMF grants received from the U.S. are a separate inflow layered on top, funding specific U.S.-equipment purchases rather than general defense operations.
03 The 2025 global military spending backdrop
To size the environment FMF operates within, defensebudget.org sums SIPRI's country-level military expenditure data for every reporting country each year. For 2025, that sum reaches $2,740.0bn across 149 countries — our calculation from SIPRI country-level data, not a figure SIPRI itself publishes as a single world total. This is the aggregate backdrop of global defense spending, distinct from and much larger than any single country's FMF allocations from the U.S.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| World military expenditure, 2025 | $2,740.0bn |
| Countries included | 149 |
| Data basis | SIPRI, constant 2024 USD |
Source: SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. Data as of 2026-08-22.
This total is a floor, not the whole world: it is the sum of the 149 countries SIPRI reports for 2025. Some spenders are absent from the dataset — North Korea has no series, and several other states have gaps — so actual global military spending is somewhat higher than $2,740.0bn.
04 Who receives FMF and how it's allocated
FMF allocations are decided annually through the U.S. foreign assistance appropriations process, with amounts and eligible countries set by Congress and the State Department. Recipient countries and allocation amounts shift from year to year based on current U.S. security priorities and congressional decisions; a specific breakdown of recipients is outside the scope of the dataset this page draws on. Because FMF is a U.S. policy instrument rather than a domestic budget line, it does not appear inside SIPRI's country expenditure figures for the recipient — it shows up, if at all, on the U.S. side of the ledger as foreign assistance spending, not as part of the $2,740.0bn 2025 world total, which measures countries' own defense budgets.
- Eligibility — set by U.S. statute and policy, revisited each budget cycle.
- Delivery mechanism — funds flow through Foreign Military Sales contracts with U.S. defense contractors.
- Reporting home — FMF sits in U.S. foreign assistance accounts, not in the recipient's own reported military budget that SIPRI tracks.
05 How to find a country's military spending on defensebudget.org
To see where any individual country stands within the $2,740.0bn 2025 total, use the 2025 world rankings, which orders all 149 reporting countries by SIPRI military expenditure. For definitions of other terms used across the site — including expenditure-share and regional-comparison metrics — see the glossary.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is foreign military financing (FMF)?
- FMF is a U.S. government program that provides grants and loans to allied and partner countries to purchase American-made defense equipment, services, and training, administered by the State Department and executed via Foreign Military Sales.
- Is FMF the same as a country's military budget?
- No. A country's military budget — the figure SIPRI tracks — is its own domestic defense spending. FMF is U.S. funding provided to that country specifically to buy U.S. equipment, and is typically a small addition on top of, not a replacement for, its own budget.
- How large is total world military spending compared to FMF?
- World military expenditure across the 149 countries SIPRI reports for 2025 totals $2,740.0bn (our calculation from SIPRI data). FMF is a U.S. foreign-assistance program and does not appear inside that expenditure total for recipient countries.
- Does the $2,740.0bn total include every country in the world?
- No — it's the sum of the 149 countries SIPRI reports for 2025. North Korea has no SIPRI series and several other states have gaps, so the true global figure is somewhat higher.
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.