Italy's arms import value accelerates in 2025: +165%. In the top three places Switzerland, USA and UK

In 2025, the total value of authorisations for the movement of weapons materials granted by Italia amounted to EUR 11.141 billion, up from EUR 8.44 billion in 2024. Of the total amount,EUR 9.164 billion are outgoing movements (these are exports, an increase of 19.14% compared to the 7.691 billion of 2024) and 1.977 billion incoming movements in Italia (these are, in this case, imports: the growth is 165.86% compared to the 743.775 million of 2024). This is underlined in the brief note of the Servizio studi del Senato, published on 21 April. It is an in-depth analysis of the 'Report on the operations authorised and carried out for the control of exports, imports and transit of armament materials, referring to the year 2025', presented on 25 March by the government.

The law (Law 185/90) provides that the Prime Minister sends a report to Parliament by 31 March of each year on the operations authorised and carried out by 31 December of the previous year, 'without prejudice to the government's obligation to report analytically to the parliamentary committees on the contents of the report within 30 days of its transmission'.

More in detail, compared to 2024, the report recorded an increase in individual export authorisations, amounting to 7.72 billion (+ 19.68 %), in line with the increase in the number of measures issued (2,576 compared to 2,569 the previous year). In contrast to the previous year, the number of global project licences and global transfer licences also increased, with a cumulative value of EUR 1.374 billion in 2025 (compared to EUR 1.18 billion in 2024). There was also an increase in the utilisation of global transfer licences from EUR 60.4 million in 2024 to EUR 69.6 million in 2025. There was a marked decrease compared to 2024, the value of intermediation authorisations, which fell from 257.7 million euros to 100.3 million euros, a contraction in percentage terms of 61 per cent.

The number of countries receiving export licences in 2025 was 88, slightly down from last year (90). For individual licences, the value of transfers/exports to EU + NATO countries was 37.62 % of the total. This figure marks a decrease in percentage terms compared to 2024 (when it stood at 44.1 per cent), but a very slight increase in absolute terms (2.904 billion compared to 2.844 billion in 2024).

Among the individual destination countries, the most important as export value is Kuwait (2.5 billion). This is followed by Germany (526 million), USA (363). In fourth place is Ukraine (349 million), then France (346), the United Kingdom (345) and Turkey (337 million). Eighth place for the NATO countries (315 million).