Poland will spend the equivalent of 4.12% of its GDP on defence this year, which is the highest level among NATO members and more than double the alliance’s guideline of 2%.
The figure – part of estimates published by NATO this week for all its members – marks a rise from the 3.92% of GDP Poland spent on defence last year, when it was also the alliance’s highest relative spender. It is also more than double the country’s figure from a decade ago.
Behind Poland, the next highest relative spenders in the alliance this year will be Estonia (3.43%), the United States (3.38%), Latvia (3.15%) and Greece (3.08%). The lowest spenders will be Spain (1.28%), Slovenia (1.29%), Luxembourg (1.29%) and Belgium (1.30%), where NATO is headquartered.
Poland has rapidly expanded its defence spending since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Last year, the former Law and Justice (PiS) government pledged to increase spending to 4% of GDP and that aim has been maintained by the new ruling coalition that took power in December.
In absolute terms, Poland’s estimated defence spend of $35 billion in 2024 is the fifth highest in NATO, behind the US ($968 billion), Germany ($98 billion), the United Kingdom ($82 billion) and France ($64 billion).
NATO’s figures also include a standardised measure of defence budgets converted into constant 2015 prices, allowing them to be more easily compared over time. This shows that Poland’s spending has more than tripled from around $8.5 billion in 2014 to $27 billion this year.
The former PiS government mounted an unprecedented military procurement spree, ordering thousands of tanks, self-propelled howitzers, combat aircraft, rocket artillery launchers, as well as new air defence systems. The majority of those deals were signed with the US and South Korea.
While the new government pledged to review some of those agreements, it has continued to emphasise spending on security. It plans to invest 10 billion zloty in fortifying Poland’s eastern border and Prime Minister Donald Tusk has also urged other EU countries to boost their defence spending.
NATO’s new figures also show that, among the alliance’s members, Poland this year is spending the highest proportion of its defence budget (51.1%) on equipment, again more than double NATO’s guideline of 20%.
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Main image credit: NATO/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
