Military profile
Thailand Military Strength
Thailand ranks #24 of 145 in the Global Firepower military strength ranking, with 350,000 active personnel. It spent $6.0 billion on its military in 2025 (1.0% of GDP).
Thailand armed forces in numbers
Personnel
- Active military personnel
- 350,000#16 of 145
- Reserve military personnel
- 100,000#35 of 145
- Paramilitary forces
- 6,000#83 of 145
- Army personnel
- 180,000#19 of 145
- Air force personnel
- 47,000#13 of 145
- Navy personnel
- 70,000#8 of 145
Air power
- Total military aircraft
- 488#24 of 145
- Fighter aircraft
- 73#30 of 145
- Attack aircraft
- 18#35 of 145
- Military helicopters
- 182#22 of 145
- Attack helicopters
- 7#55 of 145
Land forces
- Tanks
- 587#30 of 145
- Self-propelled artillery
- 50#54 of 145
- Towed artillery
- 256#44 of 145
- Rocket artillery
- 22#71 of 145
Naval power
- Aircraft carriers
- 0#8 of 113
- Destroyers
- 0#15 of 113
- Frigates
- 7#22 of 113
- Corvettes
- 6#16 of 113
- Submarines
- 0#44 of 113
- Patrol vessels
- 49#17 of 113
- Mine warfare vessels
- 5#26 of 113
Finance
- Military spending
- $6.0 billion#45 of 156
- Military spending as % of GDP
- 1.0%#113 of 156
- Purchasing power parity (GDP, PPP)
- $1.20 trillion#20 of 145
Equipment and personnel: Global Firepower 2023 military strength ranking (2023). Spending: World Bank / SIPRI military expenditure data (CC BY 4.0).
Thailand military spending 2010–2025
Military spending of Thailand grew by 15% between 2010 and 2025, from $5.2 billion to $6.0 billion (current US dollars), and stood at 1.0% of GDP in 2025.
Armed forces of Thailand
Branches and forces
Royal Thai Armed Forces (RTARF): Royal Thai Army (RTA), Royal Thai Navy (RTN; includes Royal Thai Marine Corps), Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) Office of the Prime Minister: Royal Thai Police (2025)
Personnel
estimated 350,000 active-duty Armed Forces (250,000 Army; 70,000 Navy; 30,000 Air Force) (2025)
Service age and conscription
18 years of age for voluntary military service for men and women; all men register at 17 years of age and are subject to selective compulsory military service at 21; volunteer service obligation may be as short as 6-18 months, depending on educational qualifications; conscript service obligation also varies by educational qualifications, but is typically 24 months (2025)
Equipment and suppliers
the RTARF has a diverse array of foreign-supplied armaments, as well as some domestically produced items; its imported weapons and equipment are from a variety of suppliers, including China, several European countries, Israel, Russia, South Korea, and the US; Thailand's domestic defense industry produces such items as armored vehicles, artillery systems, naval vessels, unmanned aerial vehicles, and other military technologies (2025)
Deployments abroad
280 South Sudan (UNMISS) (2025)
Good to know
the missions of the Royal Thai Armed Forces (RTARF) include defending the country’s territory and sovereignty, protecting the monarchy, ensuring internal security, and responding to natural disasters; key areas of emphasis are disputed international borders and a low-level insurgency in the country's south; the military has historically had a large role in domestic politics and has attempted as many as 20 coups since the fall of absolute monarchy in 1932, the most recent being in 2014 in July 2025, following months of rising tensions, the RTARF and Cambodian military forces clashed in multiple locations along their disputed border; both sides blamed the other for provoking the five-day conflict, which included cross-border artillery shelling by both sides and air attacks by RTARF fighter aircraft and drones; since 2004, the RTARF and Thai paramilitary forces have combated a separatist insurgency in the southern Thailand provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat, as well as parts of Songkhla; the insurgency is rooted in ethnic Malay nationalist resistance to Thai rule that followed the extension of Siamese sovereignty over the Patani Sultanate in the 18th century; the insurgency consists of several armed groups, the largest of which is the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Koordinasi (BRN-C): insurgent attacks have largely involved bombings; since 2020, Thai officials have been negotiating with BRN, and has parallel talks with an umbrella organization, MARA Pattani, that claims to represent the insurgency groups (2025)
Military expenditure (% of GDP)
2024: 1.1% · 2023: 1.3% · 2022: 1.3% · 2021: 1.3% · 2020: 1.4%
Forces and service: CIA World Factbook (public domain).
Myanmar
Laos
Cambodia
Malaysia