How Much Does Saudi Arabia Spend on Its Military?

Between $64 billion and $83 billion in 2025, depending on who is counting: SIPRI’s estimate is the higher figure, the Saudi budget’s military line the lower one.

SIPRI’s estimates, in US dollars at the prices of each year, run as follows. In 2015, the first year of the Yemen intervention, SIPRI put Saudi spending at $87.2 billion, third in the world, Argaam reported. In 2024 it was $80.3 billion, seventh in the world. In 2025 it was $83.2 billion, eighth, a real increase of 1.4 percent on 2024 and 12 percent on 2016.

The Finance Ministry’s own budget line, called the military sector, gives smaller numbers. Spending was SAR 237 billion in 2024. The 2025 budget planned SAR 272 billion, but the ministry’s year-end estimate was SAR 239 billion, according to KPMG’s review of the 2026 budget. The 2026 budget, approved on December 2, 2025, allocates SAR 240 billion, Argaam reported. At the riyal’s fixed rate of 3.75 to the dollar, that is about $64 billion.

Because they measure different things. The Finance Ministry’s military sector is a budget category. It covers the armed forces but also military hospitals, schools and the running of facilities, and it is reported in riyals as an allocation that can change during the year.

SIPRI applies its own definition of military spending across every country and marks the Saudi figure as an estimate. In both 2024 and 2025 SIPRI’s number was about $17 billion to $20 billion above the military-sector line, so the two series should not be mixed. Use SIPRI to compare Saudi Arabia with other countries, and the budget to follow the kingdom’s own plans year by year. Neither figure shows the full cost of a single war: the budget for 2026 was written before the Houthi war resumed.

About 6.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2025, down from 9.2 percent in 2016, SIPRI estimates. The share has fallen because the economy has grown faster than the defence budget, not because spending has been cut.

That burden is still one of the heaviest in the world. SIPRI ranks Saudi Arabia fifth by share of GDP in 2025. Israel spent 7.8 percent of GDP, and the Middle East as a whole averaged 3.8 percent, the highest of any region. Inside the state budget, the military sector takes SAR 240 billion of the SAR 1.31 trillion planned for 2026, about 18 percent, close to health and social development (SAR 259 billion) and ahead of education (SAR 202 billion).

Eighth in the world and first in the Middle East, by a wide margin.

SIPRI estimates that the Middle East spent $218 billion on the military in 2025, so Saudi Arabia accounted for about 38 percent of the region’s total on its own. Israel spent $48.3 billion, Türkiye $30.0 billion and Iran $7.4 billion. The United States is by far the world’s biggest spender, at $954 billion in 2025, followed by China at an estimated $336 billion and Russia at an estimated $190 billion. The countries just ahead of Saudi Arabia were the United Kingdom at $89.0 billion and Ukraine at an estimated $84.1 billion; France was just behind at $68.0 billion.

It is also one of the biggest buyers of foreign weapons. SIPRI’s March 2026 arms transfers fact sheet ranks Saudi Arabia the third-largest importer of major arms in 2021-25, with 6.8 percent of the world total. The United States supplied 77 percent of those imports, and Saudi Arabia was the largest single customer for American arms, taking 12 percent of US exports.

Mostly American and British aircraft and air defences, and the pay, training and upkeep of the forces that operate them.

The Royal Saudi Air Force is built around the F-15SA and the Eurofighter Typhoon. Air and missile defence rests on the Patriot and THAAD systems. On January 30, 2026, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible $9 billion sale of 730 PAC-3 MSE interceptors to refill Saudi stocks. Our guides explain how much a Patriot missile costs and how much a THAAD interceptor costs.

Larger deals are still to come. In May 2025 the White House announced arms agreements worth nearly $142 billion, though Al Jazeera noted that many items had been in negotiation for years. On November 18, 2025, the two countries signed a Strategic Defense Agreement that cleared the way for F-35 fighters and nearly 300 Abrams tanks, Breaking Defense reported. An announced agreement is not the same as money spent: payments are spread over many years.

Riyadh also wants more of the money to stay at home. The General Authority for Military Industries said in November 2025 that 24.89 percent of military spending was localized by the end of 2024, up from 19.35 percent a year earlier, Arab News reported. The Vision 2030 target is more than 50 percent.

Because it faces missile and drone threats from Iran and the Houthis, buys most of its weapons abroad at high prices, and has long paid for security that it cannot yet fully provide on its own.

The wars of 2026 have raised the bill. Military spending in the first quarter was 26 percent higher than a year earlier, Tim Callen of the Arab Gulf States Institute wrote on May 6, linking it to the US-Israeli war with Iran. By the end of June the ministry had spent 52 percent of the year’s military allocation, before the Houthi war resumed in July.

Silent Dossier’s position, set out in Saudi Military Spending: The Test Facing Khalid bin Salman, is that the scale of the spending makes results a fair public question. Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman should face a formal performance review of what years of investment have bought, with his position at stake if avoidable failures are established. The strike the Houthis claimed on the Defense Ministry in Riyadh on October 22 sharpened that question.

SIPRI estimates Saudi military spending at $83.2 billion in 2025, eighth in the world.

That was about 6.5 percent of Saudi GDP, down from 9.2 percent in 2016.

Saudi Arabia accounted for about 38 percent of the Middle East’s $218 billion in military spending in 2025.

The 2026 budget gives the military sector SAR 240 billion, about $64 billion and 18 percent of planned state spending.

The ministry spent SAR 124.6 billion on the military sector in the first half of 2026, up 12 percent on a year earlier.

Saudi Arabia was the world’s third-largest arms importer in 2021-25, with 77 percent of its imports coming from the United States.

GAMI says 24.89 percent of military spending was localized at the end of 2024, against a target of more than 50 percent by 2030.

SIPRI’s estimate for 2015, the year the Yemen intervention began, was $87.2 billion, higher than its figure for 2025.