Which NATO countries spend the highest percentage of GDP on defence and how has that changed since 2014?
Executive summary
Since NATO’s 2014 Wales pledge, the countries spending the largest shares of GDP on defence have shifted from a few high outliers to a broader cohort of front-runners: Poland leads at roughly 4.1% of GDP, followed by the United States and Estonia at about 3.4%, Latvia near 3.2% and Greece around 3.1% in recent NATO estimates; these shares represent marked increases from 2014 when most allies were well below the 2% benchmark [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Collectively, European NATO allies and Canada rose from roughly 1.4–1.5% of GDP in 2014 to about 2.66% by 2024, reflecting a large, alliance-wide rearmament trend accelerated by Russia’s 2014 actions and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine [6] [4] [7] [1].
1. The top spenders today — who they are and where the numbers come from
Poland has been identified as NATO’s single largest defence spender as a share of GDP, approximately 4.1% in recent NATO tallies, with Estonia, the United States and Latvia also among the highest per‑GDP spenders (Estonia and the U.S. at about 3.4%, Latvia ~3.2%), while Greece sits close behind at roughly 3.1% according to NATO and independent trackers and media summaries [1] [2] [4] [5]. These figures are reflected across multiple trackers and charting outlets—NATO’s official reporting, the Atlantic Council’s tracker, Statista and Visual Capitalist among them—which show consistent top‑end positions for Eastern European states plus the United States when measured by percentage of national income devoted to defence [8] [9] [3] [4].
2. The 2014 baseline — how low many allies were and why that matters
In 2014, the alliance made its Wales Defence Investment Pledge amid concerns about capability shortfalls: European allies and Canada collectively spent only about 1.43–1.47% of GDP on defence at that time, and only three allies met the 2% guideline then, underscoring how concentrated high spending was in a very small set of countries [6] [7] [10]. That low baseline is crucial because it both explains the political urgency behind the 2014 pledge and amplifies percentage increases since then—moving from 1.4–1.5% to around 2.6% collective share is a large structural shift even if absolute dollar increases remain dominated by the United States [6] [4] [3].
3. The trajectory since 2014 — sharp increases, especially after 2022
Defence budgets rose steadily after 2014 and spiked following Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, producing an “unprecedented” rise in European and Canadian defence spending: NATO reports and independent analyses note a jump from single‑digit numbers of allies meeting 2% in the mid‑2010s to two‑thirds or more meeting it by 2024, and a region‑wide increase from about 1.18–1.47% in 2014 to roughly 2.66% by 2024 [2] [4] [7] [1]. Baltic and Central European states recorded the steepest percentage increases—Latvia and Lithuania among the biggest relative rises—while other NATO members moved more gradually [1] [4].
4. Policy shifts and new targets — from 2% to a 5% ambition
The 2% standard set in 2014 has now been eclipsed politically by a 2025 Hague summit commitment pushing allies toward a 5% of GDP goal by 2035, split between at least 3.5% on core defence and up to 1.5% for resilience and defence‑related investments; that new target reframes what “high spending” will look like for the alliance in the decade ahead [6] [9] [11]. This policy evolution is explicitly motivated by changed threat perceptions and a desire to rebalance burden‑sharing, but it also exposes divergent national capacities and domestic political constraints across allies that will shape who reaches those new thresholds [9] [11].
5. Caveats, data differences and political angles
Comparisons across sources are complicated by differences in GDP baselines, national accounting and which expenditures count as “defence” under NATO’s definition, and NATO itself warns that national forecasts and accounting choices can shift whether a country is deemed to have met a given threshold [8] [6]. Political framing matters: U.S. leaders have long pushed for higher European spending to relieve perceived U.S. burden‑sharing imbalances, a stance that both pressures allies to raise budgets and serves U.S. diplomatic objectives, while NATO’s recent upward redefinition of targets signals collective momentum but also raises questions about affordability and strategic priorities in member capitals [3] [11] [9].