On April 17, Japanese Defense Minister Koizumi Shinjirō announced that the defense and security-related budget for fiscal year 2026 totals 10.6 trillion yen. Specifically, the Japanese government allocated 9 trillion yen for the Ministry of Defense budget and 1.6 trillion yen for security-related expenses, including public infrastructure development and maritime security.
This amount represents approximately 1.9% of the fiscal year 2022 GDP. Since the revision of its three major security documents in 2022, the Japanese government has been calculating its defense spending ratio based on the GDP of that period. Previously, in 2022, Japan decided to increase its defense-related budget to 2% of GDP by fiscal year 2027 and secure approximately 43 trillion yen for defense spending over a five-year period.
Meanwhile, reports indicate that the outstanding balance of defense loans used by the Japanese government to procure defense equipment has more than tripled over the past four years. In particular, the amount of “future-year burden”—payments for equipment such as weaponry in the defense budget spread over multiple years—is projected to reach 17.8 trillion yen this year.
