NATO countries officially agreed to raise their defense expenditures to 5% of their GDP by 2035.

But how do their military expenditures compare to what they spend on health and education?

This visualization, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, shows a side-by-side comparison of government spending priorities as a percentage of GDP for all NATO members.

Data for this visualization comes from NATO’s public releases, and two World Banks sources: education and health spending.

Figures from the most recent year for each metric is used, listed in the above graphic and in the table in the next section.

Compared: NATO’s Spending on Military Vs. Education and Health

Currently, every NATO country currently spends less on its military than on health or education.

However, the new 5% of GDP target for defense spending is currently higher than what every NATO country currently spends on their military.

Country	Military Spend (% of GDP, 2024)	Health Spend (% of GDP 2022/23)	Education Spend (% of GDP 2021/22)
🇵🇱 Poland	4.1	7.0	4.7
🇪🇪 Estonia	3.4	7.0	5.3
🇺🇸 U.S.	3.4	16.5	5.4
🇱🇻 Latvia	3.2	7.6	4.6
🇬🇷 Greece	3.1	8.5	4.1
🇱🇹 Lithuania	2.9	7.3	4.3
🇫🇮 Finland	2.4	9.7	6.5
🇩🇰 Denmark	2.4	9.4	5.3
🇬🇧 UK	2.3	10.9	5.0
🇷🇴 Romania	2.3	5.8	3.3
🇲🇰 North Macedonia	2.2	7.6	3.3
🇳🇴 Norway	2.2	8.0	4.0
🇧🇬 Bulgaria	2.2	7.7	4.7
🇸🇪 Sweden	2.1	10.9	7.6
🇩🇪 Germany	2.1	11.8	4.5
🇭🇺 Hungary	2.1	6.4	4.7
🇨🇿 Czech Republic	2.1	8.5	4.8
🇹🇷 Türkiye	2.1	3.7	2.6
🇫🇷 France	2.1	11.9	5.4
🇳🇱 Netherlands	2.1	10.1	5.1
🇦🇱 Albania	2.0	6.2	2.7
🇲🇪 Montenegro	2.0	10.9	4.4
🇸🇰 Slovakia	2.0	7.7	4.8
🇭🇷 Croatia	1.8	7.2	4.1
🇵🇹 Portugal	1.6	10.0	4.8
🇮🇹 Italy	1.5	8.5	4.2
🇨🇦 Canada	1.4	11.2	4.1
🇧🇪 Belgium	1.3	10.8	6.4
🇱🇺 Luxembourg	1.3	5.8	4.7
🇸🇮 Slovenia	1.3	9.4	5.4
🇪🇸 Spain	1.3	9.7	4.3
🇮🇸 Iceland	0.0	9.0	7.1

For example, Poland leads NATO in military spending at 4.1% of GDP, driven by concerns over the war in Ukraine.

The U.S. defense budget, despite being close to $1 trillion, is still about 3% of its GDP. This is only a fraction of what it spends on health: 16.5% of its GDP.

For reference, this chart breaks down the U.S. consumer economy, where health care accounted for $3 trillion in American spending in 2023.

While the U.S. is an outlier for its comparative health expenditure, health remains the largest expenditure category for all NATO countries.

However, a 5% defense spending target would push 21 countries into spending more on their militaries than schools.

Has Europe’s Free Defense Ride Ended?

The new 5% target is a dramatic reversal in priorities for many European nations, particularly in Western Europe, where defense has long taken a back seat to public services.

However President Trump’s threats of pulling back U.S. support is now forcing a continent-wide re-militarization, especially in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

To meet the new threshold, governments will need to either raise revenues dramatically or pull funding from other areas.