US vs China defence spending 2016-2026

Summary

•The US defence-spending lead did not disappear: comparable military-expenditure estimates show the US spent $997B in 2024 versus China’s $314B — still 3.2x larger — and the 2025 SIPRI update leaves the US at about 2.8x China.
•The surprise is that China’s nominal spending growth since 2016 was only modestly faster than the US through 2024, so the gap narrowed cyclically rather than structurally.
•For 2026, actual military-expenditure data are not yet available; official budget/request figures point to $962B for the US versus about $275B for China, but those are budget measures and should not be read as SIPRI-equivalent actual spending.

United States vs. China · 2016–2025 · Current USD

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Data Source: World Bank · SIPRI

Updated 3 Jul 2026

•Using current-dollar military expenditure — the standard internationally comparable measure — the US remains in a different scale category.
•China has sustained steady increases, but the US post-2021 step-up more than offset earlier narrowing.
•The implication is that the bilateral spending gap is still driven more by the US base level than by annual growth differentials.

United States vs. China · 2016–2025 · Indexed to 2016 = 100, current USD

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Data Source: World Bank · SIPRI

Updated 3 Jul 2026

•Using current-dollar military expenditure — the standard internationally comparable measure — the US remains in a different scale category.
•China has sustained steady increases, but the US post-2021 step-up more than offset earlier narrowing.
•The implication is that the bilateral spending gap is still driven more by the US base level than by annual growth differentials.

United States vs. China · 2016–2024 · Military spending as share of GDP

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Data Source: World Bank

Updated 3 Jul 2026

•The burden comparison matters because China’s military build-up is often discussed in headline dollars, but the US still devotes about twice China’s GDP share to the military.
•That keeps Washington’s spending capacity structurally larger, while Beijing’s steady nominal increases are constrained by a lower military share of a still-slower nominal-dollar economy.

United States vs. China · 2026 official budget/request

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Data Source: Congressional Research Service · Janes

Updated 3 Jul 2026

•For 2026, the cleanest reading is budgetary rather than actual expenditure: the US figure is a fiscal-year request/appropriations framework, while China’s is a calendar-year official defence-budget proposal.
•These are useful for direction, but they are not equivalent to SIPRI’s broader military-expenditure methodology, especially because China’s official defence budget can understate total military-related resources relative to SIPRI estimates.

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