Military profile
Czechia Military Strength
Czechia ranks #48 of 145 in the Global Firepower military strength ranking, with 26,000 active personnel. It spent $7.1 billion on its military in 2025 (1.8% of GDP).
Czechia armed forces in numbers
Personnel
- Active military personnel
- 26,000#85 of 145
- Reserve military personnel
- 0#84 of 145
- Paramilitary forces
- 0#113 of 145
- Army personnel
- 13,000#106 of 145
- Air force personnel
- 5,000#73 of 145
- Navy personnel
- 0#113 of 145
Air power
- Total military aircraft
- 97#75 of 145
- Fighter aircraft
- 12#72 of 145
- Attack aircraft
- 16#40 of 145
- Military helicopters
- 40#70 of 145
- Attack helicopters
- 11#46 of 145
Land forces
- Tanks
- 50#91 of 145
- Self-propelled artillery
- 66#48 of 145
- Towed artillery
- 0#107 of 145
- Rocket artillery
- 0#98 of 145
Finance
- Military spending
- $7.1 billion#39 of 156
- Military spending as % of GDP
- 1.8%#75 of 156
- Purchasing power parity (GDP, PPP)
- $410.0 billion#47 of 145
Equipment and personnel: Global Firepower 2023 military strength ranking (2023). Spending: World Bank / SIPRI military expenditure data (CC BY 4.0).
Czechia military spending 2010–2025
Military spending of Czechia grew by 182% between 2010 and 2025, from $2.5 billion to $7.1 billion (current US dollars), and stood at 1.8% of GDP in 2025.
Armed forces of Czechia
Branches and forces
Czech Armed Forces: Land Forces, Air Force, Special Forces (2025)
Personnel
approximately 28,000 active-duty military personnel (2025)
Service age and conscription
18-28 years of age for voluntary military service for men and women; conscription abolished 2004 (2025)
Equipment and suppliers
the Czech military has a mix of domestically produced, Soviet-era, and more recently acquired modern weapons and equipment from such suppliers as France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the US; its domestic defense industry produces such items as armored combat vehicles and light attack aircraft (2025)
Deployments abroad
up to 130 Lithuania (NATO); 130 Slovakia (NATO) (2024)
Good to know
the Czech military is responsible for national and territorial defense, assisting civil authorities during natural disasters or other emergencies, boosting border security alongside the police, participating in international peacekeeping operations, and supporting its collective security commitments to the EU and NATO, both of which Czechia considers pillars of its national security strategy; Czechia is a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, contributes to UN peacekeeping operations, and actively participates in EU military and security missions under the EU Common Security and Defense Policy; the Czech military has been an active member of NATO since the country joined in 2009 and participates in a variety of NATO’s collective defense missions, including contributing to the Enhanced Forward Presence in Eastern Europe, Baltic Air Policing operations, rapid response forces, and operations in Kosovo; it also exercises regularly with NATO partners and maintains close bilateral ties to a number of militaries particularly partner members of the Visegrad Group (Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) and Germany the military has commands for its land, air, cyber/information operations, and territorial forces, as well as a joint operations command and a separate special forces directorate; the Territorial Command is responsible for the active reserves and regional military commands that align with each of Czechia’s 13 regions and the capital, Prague (2025)
Military expenditure (% of GDP)
2025: 2% · 2024: 2.1% · 2023: 1.5% · 2022: 1.3% · 2021: 1.4%
Forces and service: CIA World Factbook (public domain).
Germany
Poland
Austria
Slovakia