Italy's military expenditure grows by 20% in 2025 but is below 2% of GDP

Italia is among the top 15 countries in the world for military spending (in 12th place), with a significant increase in spending (+20% in 2025 over 2024) and a growing weight on GDP, but it remains below the threshold of 2% of gross domestic product (1.9 per cent). The latest report on global military spending published on Monday 27 April by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) takes a snapshot of this. Twelve of the top 15 countries by military expenditure have increased their allocations in 2025, while only the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel have seen a decrease. States at the bottom of the top 15 recorded some of the largest year-on-year percentage increases within this group, with Spain (ranked 15th) recording the largest increase (plus 50%). Poland (ranked 14th) increased its spending by 23%, while Italia (ranked 12th) and Ukraine (ranked 7th) each increased their military spending by 20%.

The total military expenditure of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) member states reached $1.581 trillion in 2025 and accounted for 55% of global military spending. In June 2025, Nato member states agreed to increase the alliance's military spending target to 5.0% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035, a substantial increase from the previous target of 2% of GDP by 2024, agreed in 2014. Of that 5.0 per cent of gross domestic product, the report points out, at least 3.5 per cent should be allocated to basic military spending, while the remaining 1.5 per cent can be allocated to what NATO calls 'defence and security-related spending'. According to the Atlantic Alliance, this could include spending to protect critical infrastructure, to ensure civil preparedness and resilience, or to strengthen the weapons industrial base. However, Sipri analysts note, NATO has so far provided little guidance on the boundaries of the non-core military expenditure category, creating difficulties in defining and reporting military expenditure, which in turn raises concerns at the strategic level.

The report highlights that the "blurring of boundaries between core and related military expenditure categories carries the risk of inconsistent reporting and reduced transparency, limiting effective public scrutiny. It could also incentivise Nato members to reclassify non-military activities as military to meet politicised objectives, generating scope for 'creative accounting' and the militarisation of civilian projects, such as Italia's reported attempt in 2025 to include the cost of building a bridge to Sicily in its military spending'.

 The issue, the analysts of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute make clear, is highlighted by the fact that "in 2025 there were significant discrepancies between Sipri and Nato military expenditure figures. However, as Nato does not publish disaggregated data or technical details on its calculations, independent verificationof these figures is becoming more difficult. For example, NATO has estimated Canada's military spending in 2025 at USD 5.0 billion more than the SIPRI figure, but has not made public the scope of the additional spending. At the strategic level, notes SIPRI, inflated or inconsistently defined military expenditure figures can misrepresent the actual military capability of NATO members and distort force balance assessments, potentially affecting threat perception and capability development based on spending levels that do not accurately reflect operational capability."

According to Sipri analysts, "the main contributor to the global increase in military spending in 2025 was a 14% increase in Europe to $864 billion. Spending by Russia and Ukraine continued to rise in the fourth year of the war in Ukraine, while continued rearmament efforts by European NATO members led to the strongest annual growth in spending in Central and Western Europe since the end of the Cold War'. According to Sipri's methodology, the 29 European members of the Atlantic Alliance spent a total of USD 559 billion in 2025 and 22 of them recorded military spending of at least 2 per cent of gross domestic product. Germany was the country with the highest military expenditure of the group, with a year-on-year increase of 24% to USD 114 billion. For the first time since 1990, German military spending exceeded the 2% threshold, reaching 2.3% of GDP in 2025. Spanish military spending also increased by 50% to USD 40.2 billion, exceeding the 2% of GDP threshold for the first time since 1994.