Norway Tops NATO Defense Spending Per Person

This visualization ranks the 31 NATO members for which NATO reports core defence expenditure per capita in its July 2026 update. Values are NATO estimates for 2026, expressed in constant 2021 US dollars using 2021 prices and exchange rates. Norway ranks first at $3,168 per person, followed by Denmark at $2,595 and the United States at $2,481. That puts Norway about 27.7% above the U.S. on a per-person basis—even though the U.S. remains the alliance’s dominant spender in absolute dollars. The chart displays every member with a reported value and uses NATO’s own alliance-wide per-capita total of $1,496 as a benchmark; this benchmark is population-weighted and is not the arithmetic mean of country values. NATO has 32 members, but Iceland is not assigned a value in the expenditure table because it has no standing armed forces. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are estimates and may be revised. This is a comparison of government defense expenditure per resident, not individual tax payments or military capability.