Military profile
Chad Military Strength
Chad ranks #97 of 145 in the Global Firepower military strength ranking, with 35,000 active personnel. It spent $649 million on its military in 2025 (3.2% of GDP).
Chad armed forces in numbers
Personnel
- Active military personnel
- 35,000#76 of 145
- Reserve military personnel
- 0#84 of 145
- Paramilitary forces
- 5,000#88 of 145
- Army personnel
- 33,250#81 of 145
- Air force personnel
- 350#128 of 145
- Navy personnel
- 0#113 of 145
Air power
- Total military aircraft
- 34#102 of 145
- Fighter aircraft
- 0#95 of 145
- Attack aircraft
- 6#53 of 145
- Military helicopters
- 16#101 of 145
- Attack helicopters
- 3#67 of 145
Land forces
- Tanks
- 90#83 of 145
- Self-propelled artillery
- 10#85 of 145
- Towed artillery
- 5#104 of 145
- Rocket artillery
- 20#75 of 145
Finance
- Military spending
- $649 million#93 of 156
- Military spending as % of GDP
- 3.2%#26 of 156
- Purchasing power parity (GDP, PPP)
- $25.0 billion#129 of 145
Equipment and personnel: Global Firepower 2023 military strength ranking (2023). Spending: World Bank / SIPRI military expenditure data (CC BY 4.0).
Chad military spending 2010–2025
Military spending of Chad grew by 5% between 2010 and 2025, from $616 million to $649 million (current US dollars), and stood at 3.2% of GDP in 2025.
Armed forces of Chad
Branches and forces
Chadian National Army (Armee Nationale du Tchad, ANT): Ground Forces (l'Armee de Terre, AdT), Chadian Air Force (l'Armee de l'Air Tchadienne, AAT), Chadian National Gendarmerie; General Direction of the Security Services of State Institutions (Direction Generale des Services de Securite des Institutions de l'Etat, GDSSIE) Ministry of Public Security and Immigration: National Nomadic Guard of Chad (GNNT) (2025)
Personnel
estimated 35-40,000 active Chadian National Army personnel (2025)
Service age and conscription
18-25 for voluntary service; men subject to 18-36 months of compulsory service at age 20; women are subject to 12 months of compulsory military or civic service at age 21 (2025)
Equipment and suppliers
the ANT has a mix of older, secondhand, and some more modern armaments from a variety of suppliers, including Brazil, China, France, Russia/former Soviet Union, Türkiye, Ukraine, and the UAE (2025)
Deployments abroad
note: Chad has committed approximately 1,000-1,500 troops to the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) against Boko Haram and other terrorist groups operating in the general area of the Lake Chad Basin and along Nigeria's northeast border; national MNJTF troop contingents are deployed within their own territories, although cross‐border operations are conducted periodically
Good to know
internal security is the primary focus of the Chadian National Army, and it is actively engaged in counterinsurgency operations against multiple terrorist and rebel groups; the terrorist groups Boko Haram and Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham in West Africa operate in the Lake Chad Basin area; meanwhile, a number of anti-government militias operate in northern Chad, some from bases in southern Libya, including the FACT (Front pour le Changement et la Concorde au Tchad), the Military Command Council for the Salvation of the Republic (le Conseil de Commandement Militaire pour le salut de la République or CCSMR), the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (le Union des Forces pour la Démocratie et le Développement or UFDD), and the Union of Resistance Forces (le Union des Forces de la Résistance UFR); former Chadian President Idriss DEBY was killed in April 2021 during fighting between the FACT and government forces (2025)
Military expenditure (% of GDP)
2024: 3% · 2023: 2.9% · 2022: 2.6% · 2021: 2.5% · 2020: 2.9%
Forces and service: CIA World Factbook (public domain).
Central African Republic
Sudan
Niger
Cameroon
Libya
Nigeria