How much does the US contribute to NATO?

With the United States’ dispute with fellow NATO members over Greenland dominating the news agenda this week, we’ve seen various claims about how much the country spends on NATO and on defence.

At the World Economic Forum’s annual Davos summit in Switzerland on Wednesday, US president Donald Trump claimed that prior to him taking office the United States “was paying for virtually 100% of NATO”, while we’ve also seen various different claims about US and NATO defence spending on social media.

There are two different ways of looking at the US contribution to NATO in financial terms. Looking at NATO’s direct budget, which pays for things like its headquarters, the US contributes around 15%, the same proportion as Germany. But looking at defence budgets as a whole, the US spends far more than any other NATO member and accounts for the majority of total spending by NATO countries.

What is NATO?

NATO—or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—is a defence alliance made up of 32 countries. Almost all of these are in Europe, though Canada and the US are also members, as is Turkey.

The most important principle of the organisation is collective defence, which means that an armed attack against one NATO member state is considered an attack against all NATO members.

How much do countries directly contribute to NATO’s annual budget?

Collectively, NATO allies fund the organisation’s annual budget, which is around €5.3 billion for 2026. This pays for things such as NATO’s headquarters, worldwide operations and missions, air and naval basing facilities, and satellite communications and control systems.

This budget is gathered using common funding, a system by which members contribute to a pool of collective resources. How much individual member states contribute to this is based on their Gross National Income.

In 2026 the US’s cost share of this is 14.9%, the same as Germany. Until the end of 2025, both countries were responsible for 15.9% of NATO’s funding. The UK is responsible for 10.3% of these costs, slightly down from its previous level of 11%.

The cost share contributions of each country have changed over the years. In 1952, the US, France and the UK all contributed 22.5%, but by 1997 the US’s cost share was 28.45%, the highest it appears to have been.

What about countries’ overall defence spending?

The US is estimated by NATO to have spent 3.22% of its GDP on defence in 2025.

While this wasn’t the highest proportion (for example, Poland spent 4.48% of its GDP on defence and Lithuania 4%), the US did spend far more in cash terms than other countries. It’s estimated to have spent $980 billion on defence in 2025. The next highest spender was the UK, at $90.5 billion.

According to NATO figures published last year, NATO countries between them are estimated to have spent a total of $1.404 trillion on defence in 2025 (this figure is based on 2021 prices and exchange rates). US spending accounted for a majority (60%) of this total—so not only did the US spend more than any other NATO country, it spent more than all the other NATO countries combined.

The US’s proportional spend was even higher in previous years. In 2016, the year before President Trump’s first term, US defence spending accounted for 72% of NATO countries’ combined spending (at this point in time Montenegro, Finland, Sweden and North Macedonia weren’t members, so there were fewer countries in NATO).

It may be this figure Mr Trump had in mind when he claimed the US had been paying for “virtually 100%” of NATO, though if so he was clearly exaggerating.

In 2006, NATO member states agreed to spend at least 2% of their nation’s GDP on defence. In 2025, for the first time in recent years, all members were expected to meet or exceed this target. The target refers to specific types of defence spending, as outlined by NATO. We’ve written more about this in our defence spending explainer.

One graphic we’ve seen shared online in recent days shows the US as the NATO nation that spends the highest proportion of GDP on defence. However, these appear to refer to figures for 2017 (when the US did spend the highest proportion), rather than 2025, when it did not.

The US has spent at least 3% of its GDP on defence since at least 1980.

Last year, NATO allies agreed to spend 5% of their GDP on defence annually by 2035, with at least 3.5% of GDP going on core defence and at least 1.5% on other things, such as infrastructure and resilience. (An agreement was made between NATO and Spain to make the nation exempt from this target, however. Iceland has no armed forces so is generally exempt from NATO defence spending targets).