Defence expenditure
Updated December 2025
The Ministry of Defence is responsible for managing the country’s defence resources and operating conditions. The Ministry of Defence’s budget for 2025 is approximately EUR 6.5 billion. Finland has set a goal to increase defence spending to at least 3 % of its gross domestic product (GDP) by 2029.
Costs incurred by Finland from NATO membership:
- contributions to NATO’s common budgets, based on the size of the member states’ economies,
- Finland’s contributions to NATO’s budget expenditure are about 0.9 %, amounting to about EUR 70–100 million per year.
- additional costs include:
- fulfilling the military capability requirements assigned to Finland through NATO’s defence planning process,
- participation in NATO’s operational planning and military operations.
At the NATO summit in 2025, it was decided that the defence spending of member states should be at least 5 % of each country’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035. Finland supported this decision and intends to work toward meeting the new target. NATO has also previously established that at least 20 % of defence spending must be used for the procurement of defence materiel.
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The defence budget for 2025 is allocated according to the chart below.
Image source: Finnish Ministry of Defence.
The budget represents the annual appropriation allocated for direct defence purposes. Defence expenditure is calculated in accordance with NATO’s definition of defence expenditure, which means that, in addition to the defence budget, the pension expenditure of the defence administration, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs’ share of military crisis-management expenditure, and certain defence-related expenditures of the Border Guard are included. The chart below shows the development of defence spending as a share of GDP since 2020, along with a forecast up to 2029. The GDP figures are based on data from the Ministry of Finance.
Image source: Finnish Ministry of Defence
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