Who Sells the Most Weapons?

The United States was the world’s largest arms exporter between 2020 and 2024, delivering weapons to 107 states. It accounted for 43 percent of global exports in that time period, up from 35 percent of all international arms sales between 2015 and 2019. France was in second place, accounting for 9.6 percent of arms exports in 2020-2024, up from 8.6 percent in the five year period before. This is according to the latest release of weapons transfer data by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Russia, the third biggest major arms exporter between 2020-2024, has seen a decline in arms exports over recent years. The trend started before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and as this chart shows, continued to fall from a global share of 21 percent in 2015-19 to 7.8 percent in 2020-24. According to the report, this ongoing decline is partly due to a decrease in demand from China and India as the two nations boost their own production domestically, and more recently, is likely also a result of the country doubling down on arms production for its own forces. Other factors cited include the impacts of trade sanctions on Russia and pressure from the U.S. and its allies to stop buying Russian arms. The three main destinations for Russian weapons were India (38 percent), China (17 percent) and Kazakhstan (11 percent).

Where the U.S., France and Italy were among the countries to grow their arms exports in 2020-24, Russia, China, Germany the United Kingdom and Israel were among those to record decreases in the time period. The five largest importers in 2020-24 were Ukraine, India, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.