Skip to content

Defence

National Defence, including military operations, equipment and infrastructure and NATO contributions, the Communications Security Establishment, and the bodies that review military conduct.

Headline figures

Fiscal year 2024–25

$35.0B

7.4% of the $474.4B of federal program spending reported by theme, across 68 programs.

$1,169per tax filer$851per person

Cost per tax filer uses 29,965,100 tax filers (2023, the latest count published); per person uses a population of 41,162,593 (2024). It is an allocation of cost, not a tax bill.

Defence, spending by fiscal year

Spending programs

Actual spending by program in 2024–25: operating costs, capital and payments to others, as reported by each department and reconciled to the Public Accounts. Select a program for its history and cost per taxpayer.

Show the other 48 programs

Grants and contributions

Payments to provinces, organizations and individuals in 2024–25, by transfer payment program, from the Public Accounts. These are a different cut of the same money as the programs above, so the two lists are not added together. Select one to see its largest recipients.

Show the other 1 grant and contribution programs

Sources and basis

  • GC InfoBase - Open Datasets, retrieved 2026-11-03. Open Government Licence - Canada. Program spending is reconciled to Public Accounts expenditures by vote for every organization and year. It excludes Employment Insurance benefits, the Canada Child Benefit and other items that are not appropriated, so it differs from the budget tables.
  • Detailed information on Transfer Payments, as per the Public Accounts of Canada, retrieved 2026-11-03. Open Government Licence - Canada.
  • Themes group programs by purpose, not by department. Each program is assigned to one theme by a published, reviewable rule set.