Japan Targets 2% Defense Spending

Fiscal 2027 Target of 2%

In 1976, Prime Minister Miki Takeo decided to cap Japan’s defense spending at 1% of GNP to act as a limit on militarization. While the administration of Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro abolished this official limit in 1987, it remained a powerful unspoken concept (as a percentage of GDP from fiscal 1993). This is clear from the graph below.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted a rethink of the 1% limit. After NATO member countries successively committed to spending 2% of their GDP on defense, then Prime Minister Kishida Fumio pledged in national security documents approved in December 2022 to increase Japan’s defense budget to 2% by fiscal 2027.

From a base of ¥5.4 trillion in fiscal 2022, defense spending (including expenses related to US forces realignment) rose to ¥6.8 trillion in fiscal 2023 and ¥7.9 trillion in fiscal 2024. The budget for fiscal 2025 is ¥8.7 trillion, up 9.4% year on year. With the inclusion of the budget for the Japan Coast Guard and other related expenses, this rises to ¥9.9 trillion, which is 1.8% of the fiscal 2022 GDP and 1.6% of the projected GDP for fiscal 2025.

Data Sources

• Information on Japan’s postwar defense spending (Japanese) from a House of Councillors research committee, 2017.
• Information on the fiscal 2025 defense budget (Japanese) from the Ministry of Finance, 2024.

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo: F-15 fighter jets at the Self-Defense Forces review ceremony on November 9, 2024. © Jiji.)