Military profile
Chile Military Strength
Chile ranks #46 of 145 in the Global Firepower military strength ranking, with 80,000 active personnel. It spent $5.3 billion on its military in 2025 (1.5% of GDP).
Chile armed forces in numbers
Personnel
- Active military personnel
- 80,000#53 of 145
- Reserve military personnel
- 40,000#51 of 145
- Paramilitary forces
- 50,000#31 of 145
- Army personnel
- 80,000#44 of 145
- Air force personnel
- 10,600#57 of 145
- Navy personnel
- 25,000#27 of 145
Air power
- Total military aircraft
- 289#35 of 145
- Fighter aircraft
- 45#39 of 145
- Attack aircraft
- 0#65 of 145
- Military helicopters
- 80#46 of 145
- Attack helicopters
- 0#79 of 145
Land forces
- Tanks
- 270#51 of 145
- Self-propelled artillery
- 48#57 of 145
- Towed artillery
- 250#45 of 145
- Rocket artillery
- 8#89 of 145
Naval power
- Aircraft carriers
- 0#8 of 113
- Destroyers
- 0#15 of 113
- Frigates
- 8#20 of 113
- Corvettes
- 0#47 of 113
- Submarines
- 4#26 of 113
- Patrol vessels
- 81#10 of 113
- Mine warfare vessels
- 0#53 of 113
Finance
- Military spending
- $5.3 billion#47 of 156
- Military spending as % of GDP
- 1.5%#88 of 156
- Purchasing power parity (GDP, PPP)
- $445.9 billion#45 of 145
Equipment and personnel: Global Firepower 2023 military strength ranking (2023). Spending: World Bank / SIPRI military expenditure data (CC BY 4.0).
Chile military spending 2010–2025
Military spending of Chile grew by 9% between 2010 and 2025, from $4.9 billion to $5.3 billion (current US dollars), and stood at 1.5% of GDP in 2025.
Armed forces of Chile
Branches and forces
Armed Forces of Chile (Fuerzas Armadas de Chile): Chilean Army (Ejército de Chile), Chilean Navy (Armada de Chile, includes Marine Corps and Maritime Territory and Merchant Marine Directorate or Directemar), Chilean Air Force (Fuerza Aerea de Chile, FACh) (2025)
Personnel
approximately 70,000 active Armed Forces (40,000 Army; 20,000 Navy; 10,000 Air Force); approximately 50,000 Carabineros (2025)
Service age and conscription
18-24 for voluntary military service for men and women (17 for men with parental permission); selective compulsory service for men 18-24 (there are usually enough volunteers to make compulsory service unnecessary); service obligation is a maximum of 24 months (2025)
Equipment and suppliers
the Chilean military's inventory is comprised of a mix of mostly older foreign supplied armaments and some domestically produced weapons systems; significant foreign suppliers have included Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK, and the US; Chile's defense industry is active in the production of military aircraft, ships, and vehicles (2025)
Good to know
the Chilean military's responsibilities are territorial defense, ensuring the country’s sovereignty, assisting with disaster and humanitarian relief, and providing some internal security duties such as border security or maintaining public order if required; a key focus in recent years has been assisting with securing the border area with Bolivia and Peru; it trains regularly and participates in bilateral and multinational training exercises, as well as international peacekeeping operations Chile and Argentina have a joint peacekeeping force known as the Combined Southern Cross Peacekeeping Force (FPC), designed to be made available to the UN; the FPC is made up of air, ground, and naval components, as well as a combined logistics support unit the Chilean Army was founded in 1810, but traces its origins back to the Army of the Kingdom of Chile, which was established by the Spanish Crown in the early 1600s; Chile's military aviation was inaugurated in 1913 with the creation of a military aviation school; the Navy traces its origins to 1817; it was first led by a British officer and the first ships were largely crewed by American, British, and Irish sailors; by the 1880s, the Chilean Navy was one of the most powerful in the Americas, and included the world’s first protected cruiser (a ship with an armored deck to protect vital machine spaces) (2025)
Military expenditure (% of GDP)
2024: 1.5% · 2023: 1.5% · 2022: 1.6% · 2021: 2% · 2020: 2%
Forces and service: CIA World Factbook (public domain).
Argentina
Bolivia
Peru