NATO’s New Defence Spending Target: Who’s planning What in 2026?

At their 2025 summit in The Hague, NATO Allies agreed on a new 5% defence spending goal: by 2035, 3.5% of each country’s GDP should be allocated to hard defence and 1.5% to defence-related projects. What commitments are the Allies currently making, and what challenges do they face?

In 2026, all 32 NATO Allies except Slovenia are expected to reach the 2% of GDP spending target they adopted at their 2014 summit in Wales. Still, 10 Allies only barely exceed this threshold, with an estimated expenditure between 2.0% and 2.1%. In his 2025 annual report, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte wrote: “I expect Allies at the next NATO Summit in Ankara to show they are on a clear and credible path towards the 5% objective”. Based on future spending plans regarding the 5% target, the 32 Allies can be divided into five groups: the ‘top performers’, the ‘fast-track’, ‘baseline’, ‘stressed’, and ‘reluctant’ Allies.

The first and second groups include mostly countries bordering the Baltic Sea or in Russia’s immediate vicinity. The first group, the ‘top performers’, Estonia and Lithuania, already plan to spend 5% or more on hard defence from 2026. The second group, the ‘fast-track Allies’, intend to achieve both spending targets well before 2035. These are Denmark (2030), Germany (2029), Latvia (2027), Poland (2027), Sweden (2030) and Türkiye (2030). For Denmark, Germany, and Poland, however, the commitment refers only to the 3.5% hard-defence target. But given the rather broad definition of NATO’s 1.5% target, this too should readily be achieved by these countries.

The 32 Allies can be divided into five groups: the ‘top performers’, the ‘fast-track’, ‘baseline’, ‘stressed’, and ‘reluctant’ Allies.

The third group, the ‘baseline Allies’, is by far the largest (16 Allies) and comprises those countries that intend to achieve the 5% target by the agreed deadline of 2035. However, few of these Allies have developed, or at least made public, a roadmap describing how they intend to finance their increasing defence budgets. Some, at least, likely felt pressure to sign up to the target, but will face practical difficulties in implementing it and may slip into the ‘stressed’ category as 2035 approaches. The UK, for example, faces difficult choices if it is to finance defence spending at the required level. Nonetheless, this group includes Allies such as Canada, which had one of the lowest defence spending as a share of GDP for years. Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar has also promised that Hungary will join this group. This full list of ‘baseline Allies’ is Albania, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg (whose expenditure is calculated based on its GNI), Montenegro, the Netherlands (referring to 3.5% only), Norway (referring to 3.5% only), North Macedonia, Portugal, Romania, the UK (referring to 3.5% only), and the US.

The fourth group, the ‘stressed Allies’, includes those that appear unlikely to meet the 5% target, primarily due to financial difficulties: Belgium, France and Italy. All three Allies are expected to spend only slightly above 2% in 2026, and they face enormous budgetary challenges (2025 figures). Italy (137.8%), France (117.7%) and Belgium (107.1%) have the highest gross debt-to-GDP ratios in the EU after Greece. Belgium and France, in addition, have one of the highest budget deficits (-5.2% and -5.1% respectively). France is also facing political uncertainty. Achieving the 5% defence spending target would be significantly more difficult with a Rassemblement National president, for example.

Nevertheless, countries in similar financial situations have managed to increase their spending. For example, Romania (-9.3%) and Poland (-6.5%), the only EU countries with higher budget deficits than Belgium and France, managed to increase their defence budgets from 1.86% to an expected 2.43% (Romania) and from 2.19% to an expected 4.68% (Poland) over the past five years. Popular support and political will are key factors. As Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk explained in August 2025: “We won’t defend the Polish border with a small deficit. We will defend it with a modern, large army”. Italy has promised to increase its defence budget as soon as the country is out of EU deficit procedures.

The greater the perceived threat, the more seriously countries take NATO defence spending targets.

The final group are the ‘reluctant Allies’ that have declined to aim for the 5.0% target. Both Czechia and Slovakia consider increases to their defence budgets to be unnecessary, either because of low threat perceptions or because of the wish to invest the money in areas such as healthcare or infrastructure. Czechia will even reduce its defence spending to around 1.7% in 2026. Meanwhile, Slovenia (3.0% by 2030) and Spain are the only two allies that have set their own ceilings for their defence budgets, as they are convinced that these cover their needs and costs.

This categorisation reinforces historical trends in which the greater the perceived threat, the more seriously countries take NATO defence spending targets, resulting in a north-east/south-west divide within Europe.

Views expressed in ICDS publications are those of the author(s).