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What is the spending on Defense?

In FY 2025 the federal government spent $1,340.1 billion on Defense.

That includes $915.7 billion on the military, $379.3 billion on veterans, and $45.2 billion on foreign aid.

Defense Spending Analysis

This page shows the current trends in defense spending. See here for a general history of US defense spending.

Recent Defense Spending

Recent Defense Spending

Chart S.41t: Recent Defense Spending

The decade of the 2000s was the decade of the War on Terror, with Pentagon spending going from $294 billion in 2000 to $705 billion in 2011. Veterans spending increased from $47 billion in 2000 to $109 billion in 2010 and $175 billion in 2016. Foreign aid has increased from $17 billion to $45 billion a year.

Defense spending began a steady increase starting in 2018, reaching $1 trillion in 2020.

In 2025 defense spending was $1,340.1 billion.

Recent Defense Spend as Pct GDP

Chart S.42t: Recent Defense Spend as Pct GDP

Viewed from a GDP perspective, overall defense spending increased from about 3.5 percent GDP in 2000 to 5.7 percent of GDP in 2010-11. Since then defense spending has declined to 4.4 percent GDP. During this period veterans spending has grown from 0.46 percent GDP to 0.95 percent GDP.

Since 2016 defense spending has been steady at about 4.3 percent GDP with a temporary increase to 4.7 percent GDP in the COVID year of 2020.

In 2025 defense spending was 4.6 percent GDP.

See also Defense Spending History.

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US Defense Spending Since 1965

Defense has declined by over 50 percent since the peak during the Vietnam war.

Defense Spending since 1965

Chart S.43t: Defense Spending since 1965

At the peak of the Vietnam war defense spending, including military, veterans, State Department, and foreign aid spending, hit 10 percent of GDP. But then it began a decline, down to 5.5 percent GDP in 1979.

In the Reagan administration defense spending was substantially increased, up to 6.8 percent GDP per year by 1986.

Starting in the late 1980s, even before the end of the Soviet Union, defense spending began a 15 year decline, down to 3.45 percent of GDP in 2001. That ended with the terrorist attack on 9/11 in 2001.

In the War on Terror, defense spending rose to 4.5 percent GDP with the invasion of Iraq, and then rose to 5.7 percent GDP with the anti-insurgent “surge” in Iraq. With the withdrawal from Iraq, defense spending has declined to 4.4 percent GDP.

A Century of Defense Spending

There were two major peaks of defense spending in the 20th century: World War I and World War II.

Defense Spending since 1900

Chart S.44t: Defense Spending since 1900

At the start of the 20th century, defense spending averaged about one percent of GDP. Then it spiked to 22 percent at the end of World War I. Defense spending in the 1920s ran at about 1 to 2 percent of GDP and in the 1930s, 2 to 3 percent of GDP.

In World War II defense spending peaked at 41 percent of GDP, and then declined to about 10 percent during the height of the Cold War. Thereafter it declined to 3 to 5 percent of GDP, with surges during the 1980s and the 2000s.

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Spending Data Sources

Spending data is from official government sources.

Gross Domestic Product data comes from US Bureau of Economic Analysis and measuringworth.com.

Detailed table of spending data sources here.
Medicare breakdown here; Medicaid breakdown here.

Federal spending data begins in 1792.

State and local spending data begins in 1820.

State and local spending data for individual states begins in 1957.

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Debt Now:  $37,889,756,572,760.44
Debt 2/2020:$23,409,959,150,243.63

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Data Sources for 2021_2029:

Sources for 2021:

GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2, 5.1, 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances
'Guesstimated' by projecting the latest change in reported spending forward to future years

Sources for 2029:

GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2, 5.1, 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances
'Guesstimated' by projecting the latest change in reported spending forward to future years

> data sources for other years
> data update schedule.

Blog

Federal Deficit, Receipts, Outlays Actuals for FY 2025

On October 16, 2025, the US Treasury reported in its Monthly Treasury Statement (and xlsx) for September that the federal deficit for FY 2025 ending September 30, 2025, was $1,775 billion. Here are the numbers, including total receipts, total outlays, and deficit compared with the numbers projected in the FY 2025 federal budget published in February 2024:

Federal Finances
FY 2025 Outcomes
Budget
billions
Outcome
billions
Receipts $5,485$5,235
Outlays$7,226$7,010
Deficit$1,781$1,775

We use the spending projections from the FY 2025 budget because the Federal government did not publish spending projections in its Budget for Fiscal Year 2026 as originally published in May 2025.

The Monthly Treasury Statement includes "Table 4: Receipts of the United States Government, September 2025 and Other Periods." This table of receipts by source is used for usgovernmentspending.com to post details of federal receipt actuals for FY 2025. usdgovernmentspending.com obtains the data for outlays and receipts from apis at fiscaldata.treasury.gov.

This MTS report on FY 2025 actuals is a problem for usgovernmentspending.com because this site uses Historical Table 3.2--Outlays by Function and Subfunction from the Budget of the United States as its basic source for federal subfunction outlays. But the Monthly Treasury Statement only includes "Table 9. Summary of Receipts by Source, and Outlays by Function of the U.S. Government, September 2025 and Other Periods". Subfunction amounts don't get reported until the FY27 budget in February 2026. Until then usgovernmentspending.com estimates actual outlays by "subfunction" for FY 2025 by factoring subfunction budgeted amounts for FY25 by the ratio between relevant actual and budgeted "function" amounts where actual outlays by subfunction cannot be gleaned from the Monthly Treasury Statement.

Final detailed FY 2025 actuals will not appear on usgovernmentspending.com until the FY 2027 federal budget is published in February 2026 with the actual outlays for FY 2025 in Historical Table 3.2--Outlays by Function and Subfunction.
State and Local Finances for 2023
On September 11, 2025 we updated the state and local spending and revenue for FY 2023 using the new Census Bureau  ...

State Spending for 2023
In March 2025 the US Census Bureau released data on state finances for FY 2023 here and  ...

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