Mali Defence Budget: How Much Does Mali Spend on Its Military?

How much does Mali spend on its military? Roughly US$953 million in 2025, or 3.87% of GDP, according to SIPRI’s database, and about three times what it spent a decade earlier. This guide sets out the year-by-year series, what the Malian finance laws say for 2025 and 2026, and what the headline figure leaves out.

Data as of 27 October 2026. Figures are open-source estimates; see “A note on the numbers”.

Mali’s military spending year by year, 2015 to 2026

The series below is SIPRI’s Military Expenditure Database as republished by the World Bank. Dollar values are SIPRI’s current-price conversions at each year’s exchange rate; the rate column is the World Bank’s official period-average rate for the CFA franc (FCFA), so small differences from a straight division are normal. All values except the 2026 row are Estimated by SIPRI.

Three features stand out. In dollar terms spending rose every year from 2015 to 2018, dipped slightly in 2019 and again in 2022, and then climbed by about 53% in FCFA between 2022 and 2025. The share of government spending peaked at 16.6% in 2024. And between 2013 and 2015 the series more than doubled in FCFA, from 76 billion to 183 billion, in the aftermath of the 2012 crisis.

Who publishes the number

There is no single source, and they measure slightly different things.

• The finance laws. Mali’s Transitional National Council (CNT) adopts an initial finance law (LFI) each December and often a supplementary law (LFR) in mid-year. They show an allocation to the Ministry of Defence and Veterans Affairs, not “military spending” as SIPRI defines it. SIPRI’s 2024 and 2025 FCFA figures equal the Ministry of Defence allocations reported from these laws (565.706 billion and 554.091 billion FCFA), which suggests SIPRI tracks that line.
• SIPRI. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute publishes the headline series used by the World Bank. DefenceMENA treats the Mali series as an estimate and did not open SIPRI’s country notes.
• IISS. The Military Balance publishes its own spending estimate each year; its Mali entry is paywalled and was not opened for this guide.
• The IMF. Its Article IV and programme-review reports discuss security spending in aggregate; the 2025 and 2026 country reports were not opened for this guide.

What the finance laws say for 2025 and 2026

Two points need care. First, the 2025 figures conflict: Bamada.net’s “+43.354 billion” implies an initial figure of about 510.7 billion FCFA, not the 485.1 billion reported in December 2024; DefenceMENA could not reconcile the two. Second, the 2026 picture is incomplete. New Afrique’s table, which it attributes to “official data”, shows a cut of about 22.9 billion FCFA in the draft, and it reports analysts’ explanations (the end of equipment contracts, spending optimisation or reallocation) without confirming any. The July 2026 supplementary budget then raised total spending by 415.1 billion FCFA, which Sikafinance said was mainly for “security operations”, and no outlet checked by DefenceMENA reports how much went to the Defence Ministry. The December 2025 cut should therefore not be read as the final 2026 outcome. Separately, about 17 billion FCFA was announced for armed forces personnel and their dependants on Army Day, 20 January 2026, according to APA News.

What is not in the headline figure

• Russian security support. No official figure exists for what Mali pays Russia’s Africa Corps. Africa Defense Forum wrote in May 2026 that it costs “at least US$10 million per month” without naming a source, a number that traces back to US officials’ 2021–2022 statements about Wagner; the Associated Press has noted it is unclear whether the Wagner arrangement carried over unchanged. ADF also said the junta pays in cash rather than resources. Treat all of this as Reported, unconfirmed.
• Individual contracts. The Akinci purchase was reportedly signed on 15 August 2024 for six aircraft at about US$210 million, according to The Africa Report and Jeune Afrique as cited by The Sentry; Bamako has not confirmed it. Defence Minister Sadio Camara had said it was funded from the national budget. The TB2 contract value has never been published.
• Security forces outside the Defence Ministry. The Ministry of Security and Civil Protection and the State Security Agency are separate budget lines; Bamada.net reported the State Security Agency at 21.022 billion FCFA in the August 2025 supplementary law, and La Nouvelle Voie du Mali gave the Security Ministry 184.885 billion FCFA for 2025. They are not added to the series above, and whether SIPRI includes any paramilitary component is not documented.
• Foreign partner support. European training missions and the UN mission wound down in 2022–2023; any replacement support is not itemised in public budget documents.

Mali’s spending compared with its neighbours

Mali ranks third in this group in dollars but second, after Algeria, in share of GDP. The ranking of all African militaries by spending is in DefenceMENA’s African defence budgets ranked; the force the money pays for is described in the Mali military strength profile and the Mali Air Force aircraft guide. Context on the Sahel alliance is in strongest militaries in West Africa. For regional neighbours, see Algeria and Nigeria, and for how Turkish drone purchases fit the picture, why Mali expanded its drone fleet and military drones in the Sahel.

A note on the numbers

The World Bank series was opened on 27 October 2026 and carries SIPRI’s data to 2025, but SIPRI’s own database was not accessed directly, and its methodological notes for Mali were not reviewed; secondary sources describe the Mali series as a mix of finance-law allocations and estimates. The 2024 FCFA value matches a figure quoted in a search summary of the 2025 budget coverage (565.706 billion FCFA) but was not independently opened in a budget document. The 2025 LFI figure (485.058 billion) and the LFR-implied figure (510.737 billion) conflict and are shown as such. The 2026 Defence Ministry figure is a December 2025 draft; no final or supplementary allocation was found. Off-budget payments, including to Russia, have no official figure. Dollar values for 2026 are illustrative only and use the 2025 average exchange rate. The FCFA is pegged to the euro, so its dollar value moves with the euro-dollar rate.

Sources

• World Bank (SIPRI source), Military expenditure, Mali, current USD, local currency, % of GDP, % of government spending; official exchange rate; neighbours’ series; accessed 27 October 2026
• Bamada.net, Défense à 554 milliards FCFA: le budget rectificatif 2025 fait le choix de la sécurité, 29 August 2025, accessed 27 October 2026
• La Nouvelle Voie du Mali, Loi de finances 2025: le CNT adopte la deuxième partie, 23 December 2024, accessed 27 October 2026
• New Afrique, Loi de finances 2026: le budget de la Défense en baisse, 8 December 2025, accessed 27 October 2026
• Sikafinance, Mali: le budget 2026 porté à 3 993,31 milliards FCFA, 4 July 2026, accessed 27 October 2026
• La Nouvelle Tribune, Mali: le budget 2027 dépasse 4 462 milliards FCFA, 19 September 2026, accessed 27 October 2026
• APA News, Mali: le projet de budget 2026 adopté par le CNT, December 2025, accessed 27 October 2026 (headline and summary only)
• APA News, Mali: une allocation de 17 mrds FCFA pour les forces armées, January 2026, accessed 27 October 2026 (headline and summary only)
• Africa Defense Forum, Mercenaries in Mali come with high cost, few results, 26 May 2026, accessed 27 October 2026
• The Africa Report, Turkish drones in Mali: the secret contract between Baykar and Bamako (page not opened; the figure is cited via DefenceMENA, 19 October 2026)
• World Bank, indicator metadata for MS.MIL.XPND.CD (source: SIPRI Military Expenditure Database), accessed 27 October 2026