Japan’s defence and related expenditures for fiscal 2025 are projected to total approximately 9.9 trillion yen ($70 billion), marking the equivalent of 1.8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) from three years earlier, Defence Minister Gen Nakatani announced on Tuesday.
Speaking at a press conference, Nakatani said the government will earmark around 8.5 trillion yen for the defence budget and an additional 1.5 trillion yen for related expenditures in its initial budget for the current fiscal year, which began this month.
The announcement aligns with Japan’s ongoing efforts to meet a strategic defence spending goal set in late 2022, when the government revised its National Security Strategy. The updated guidelines call for defence and related costs to reach 2 percent of GDP by fiscal 2027. As part of that policy, Japan also committed to acquiring “counterstrike capabilities”—enabling the nation to respond directly to enemy threats in emergency scenarios.
Japan has traditionally limited defence spending to about 1 percent of GDP, or roughly 5 trillion yen annually, due to its pacifist postwar Constitution. However, the country is now ramping up military expenditure in response to evolving regional and global security concerns.
According to the Defence Ministry, defence spending and associated costs accounted for 1.4 percent and 1.6 percent of GDP in fiscal 2023 and 2024, respectively.
The broader category of defence-related expenses includes funding for Japan’s coast guard, participation in United Nations peacekeeping missions, and the enhancement of cybersecurity capabilities.
