Military profile
Iceland Military Strength
Iceland ranks #137 of 145 in the Global Firepower military strength ranking. It spent $0 on its military in 2025 (0.0% of GDP).
Iceland armed forces in numbers
Personnel
- Active military personnel
- 0#143 of 145
- Reserve military personnel
- 0#84 of 145
- Paramilitary forces
- 0#113 of 145
- Army personnel
- 0#144 of 145
- Air force personnel
- 0#138 of 145
- Navy personnel
- 0#113 of 145
Air power
- Total military aircraft
- 0#141 of 145
- Fighter aircraft
- 0#95 of 145
- Attack aircraft
- 0#65 of 145
- Military helicopters
- 0#138 of 145
- Attack helicopters
- 0#79 of 145
Land forces
- Tanks
- 0#115 of 145
- Self-propelled artillery
- 0#96 of 145
- Towed artillery
- 0#107 of 145
- Rocket artillery
- 0#98 of 145
Naval power
- Aircraft carriers
- 0#8 of 113
- Destroyers
- 0#15 of 113
- Frigates
- 0#56 of 113
- Corvettes
- 0#47 of 113
- Submarines
- 0#44 of 113
- Patrol vessels
- 0#106 of 113
- Mine warfare vessels
- 0#53 of 113
Finance
- Military spending
- $0#154 of 156
- Military spending as % of GDP
- 0.0%#154 of 156
- Purchasing power parity (GDP, PPP)
- $20.0 billion#132 of 145
Equipment and personnel: Global Firepower 2023 military strength ranking (2023). Spending: World Bank / SIPRI military expenditure data (CC BY 4.0).
Armed forces of Iceland
Branches and forces
no regular military forces; the Icelandic National Police, the regional police forces, and the Icelandic Coast Guard fall under the purview of the Ministry of Justice (2025)
Good to know
Iceland was one of the original 12 countries to sign the North Atlantic Treaty (also known as the Washington Treaty) in 1949; Iceland is the only NATO member that has no standing military force; defense of Iceland is a NATO commitment, and NATO maintains an air policing presence in Icelandic airspace; Iceland participates in international peacekeeping missions with the civilian-manned Icelandic Crisis Response Unit (ICRU) Iceland also cooperates with the militaries of other regional countries through the Nordic Defense Cooperation (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) and the Joint Expeditionary Force (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK); in 1951, Iceland and the US concluded an agreement to make arrangements regarding the defense of Iceland and for the use of facilities in Iceland to that end (2025)
Forces and service: CIA World Factbook (public domain).