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Pakistan Raises Defence Budget by 20% for 2025-2026 Quwa Premium
On 11 June 2025, the Government of Pakistan revealed its upcoming budget for the fiscal year of 2025 to 2026, under which it proposed a near 20% increase to the country’s defence budget.
This increase will raise the defence budget to 2.55 trillion Pakistani rupees (PKR) – or USD $9 billion – from PKR 2.12 trillion in the fiscal year of 2024-2025 (or USD $7.64 billion).
The federal government’s budget for 2025-2026 decreased by 6.7% compared to 2024-2025 (around USD $62.45 billion), resulting in defence assuming a greater share of this year’s budget compared to that of the previous year.
In terms of spending priorities, $2.99 billion will go into employee-related expenses (e.g., wages); $2.48 billion will be spent on operating expenses (e.g., fuel, training, etc.); $2.34 billion into new procurement, and $1.19 billion into civil works (e.g., infrastructure maintenance).
It is unclear how much each of the tri-services will receive from this budget. In 2024-2025, the Army received about 47.5% of the budget, while the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and Pakistan Navy (PN) got about 21.3% and 10.8%, respectively. The remainder from last year went into an area designated as “inter-services organizations,”
It should be noted that the stated defence budget does not include pensions, which are allocated in a separate pool set at PKR 742 billion, or $2.6 billion.
Analysis: What is the Breakdown of Pakistani Defence Spending?
Overall, one should expect the procurement of platforms and munitions to be an urgent priority for this upcoming year’s fiscal budget. However, with a clear breakdown of the tri-services allocations, it would be difficult to accurately judge what systems are being prioritized.
Several areas have seen a decrease in spending allocation compared to 2024-2025. For example, allocations to defence production and the SPD in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) will see a sharp decrease of 52.5% and 77.5%, respectively. Likewise, the budget given to the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) was also reduced by 77.5%.
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