How Much Foreign Aid Does the US Give Each Year? Totals and Recipients

The United States spent roughly $63.3 billion on official development assistance in 2024, the largest total of any donor country in the world.¹ For roughly two decades, the answer to how much foreign aid the US gives each year has landed somewhere between $40 billion and $65 billion, with the higher end reflecting supplemental war-related and emergency spending. That range is now in flux: the current administration has proposed cutting the foreign operations budget by more than 40 percent for fiscal year 2026, and a January 2025 executive order froze most foreign assistance programs for a 90-day review.²

Recent Annual Totals

In fiscal year 2023, U.S. foreign aid ran about $61 billion, elevated by military and economic support packages for Ukraine. The OECD’s calendar-year 2024 measure of U.S. official development assistance came in at $63.3 billion, again the highest among all donor nations by absolute amount.¹

The FY2026 picture is unsettled. The administration’s request seeks $31.52 billion in new budget authority for State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, a 41 percent decrease from the FY2025 enacted level. Once proposed rescissions and cancellations of prior-year funding are added in, the effective reduction reaches 79.3 percent. The House Appropriations Committee has countered with H.R. 4779, which would provide $49.97 billion, roughly 6.5 percent below FY2025 but 58.5 percent above the president’s request.³ The final number is still being negotiated.

How Much of the Federal Budget Is That

Even at $63 billion, foreign aid is a small slice of what Washington spends. It consistently accounts for less than one percent of the federal budget and roughly 0.2 percent of gross domestic product. Public polling has long shown Americans overestimate the share by a wide margin, but the arithmetic has not moved much for years.

Where the Money Goes

The annual total is spread across several categories with different purposes.

Military and security assistance is one of the largest. Foreign Military Financing provides grants that partner nations use to buy American-made defense equipment and training, and by design most of the money returns to U.S. defense contractors. Related accounts fund international military education, counterterrorism partnerships, and international narcotics control programs aimed at strengthening judicial systems abroad.

Economic and development assistance covers Economic Support Funds for strategically important countries, along with longer-term work on education, agriculture, clean water, and governance. The Millennium Challenge Corporation takes a distinct approach, awarding large grants only to countries that score well on a public scorecard measuring corruption controls, rule of law, child health, and girls’ education completion rates.⁴

Global health is the most visible category. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, has invested over $100 billion since 2003 and supported antiretroviral therapy for 20.6 million people across 55 countries as of September 2024.⁵ Congress allocated $4.63 billion for bilateral HIV/PEPFAR programs in FY2026, down from $5.44 billion the year before. The administration’s request also proposed eliminating funding for family planning, neglected tropical diseases, and non-emergency nutrition programs, consolidating global health spending around infectious disease threats to Americans.⁶

Humanitarian aid rounds out the total. Food for Peace and International Disaster Assistance accounts pay for rapid responses to famines, disasters, and refugee crises, with statutory restrictions meant to keep the aid reaching civilians.

Largest Recipient Countries

Most of the annual total flows to a small group of countries chosen for strategic reasons.

Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. Under a ten-year memorandum of understanding signed in 2016, the United States committed $3.3 billion annually in Foreign Military Financing plus $500 million for cooperative missile defense programs.⁷ In FY2025, Congress maintained the $3.3 billion base level along with $450.3 million for offshore procurement.⁸ Supplemental appropriations pushed total aid to Israel above $6.8 billion in FY2024.

Ukraine became one of the highest recipients in modern history after Russia’s 2022 invasion. By the end of 2025, Congress had made approximately $188 billion available in conflict-related spending, with roughly $127 billion in direct support reaching Ukraine through military equipment, economic stabilization, and humanitarian assistance. The pace of new Ukraine aid slowed considerably in 2025 and 2026.

Jordan and Egypt each receive over a billion dollars annually, a mix of military and economic support tied to regional stability agreements. Sub-Saharan Africa gets a substantial share of health and development money, driven heavily by PEPFAR and malaria prevention, though the total is spread across many countries rather than concentrated in one. Smaller allocations reach partners in Asia and Latin America for issues like maritime security and counter-narcotics.

How the U.S. Ranks Against Other Donors

By total dollars, no country gives more. The United States has topped the OECD’s donor rankings for decades, with Germany ($32.4 billion in 2024), the United Kingdom ($18 billion), Japan ($16.8 billion), and France ($15.4 billion) trailing well behind.¹

The picture reverses when aid is measured as a share of national income. The United Nations set a longstanding target asking wealthy nations to devote 0.7 percent of gross national income to development assistance. The U.S. consistently falls below 0.2 percent, placing it near the bottom among wealthy democracies. In 2024, only four countries exceeded the 0.7 percent target: Norway (1.02 percent), Luxembourg (1.00 percent), Sweden (0.79 percent), and Denmark (0.71 percent).¹

The 2025 Freeze and USAID Overhaul

On January 20, 2025, the president issued an executive order directing all department and agency heads responsible for foreign development assistance to immediately pause new obligations and disbursements, pending a 90-day assessment of “programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy.”² The Secretary of State could waive the pause for specific programs.

The practical effect went well beyond a temporary hold. Between December 2024 and December 2025, USAID staffing fell from just under 4,900 employees to 370, a reduction of 92.4 percent.⁹ Senior career staff went on administrative leave, hundreds of contractors were laid off, and the USAID website went dark in early February 2025. Stop-work orders disrupted programs across dozens of countries, from HIV treatment to food security operations. The administration moved to fold USAID’s remaining functions into the State Department, and legal scholars have questioned whether that restructuring can be accomplished by executive order alone given that USAID was established through the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.¹⁰ That dispute is unresolved, and it will shape what the yearly total looks like from here.

How the Annual Figure Is Set

The cycle starts with the president’s budget request. Its State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs section lays out proposed funding for every international account; for FY2026 that request totaled $31.52 billion before rescissions.³ Authorization committees in Congress set policy boundaries, appropriations committees decide the dollar amounts, and lawmakers routinely attach conditions requiring countries to meet benchmarks on human rights, transparency, or counterterrorism cooperation before receiving funds. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 remains the foundational legal framework, authorizing programs “to promote the foreign policy, security, and general welfare of the United States by assisting peoples of the world in their efforts toward economic development and internal and external security.”¹¹ Once the appropriations bill is signed, funds flow to the responsible agencies, and the annual total for that fiscal year is locked in.

1
OECD. Official Development Assistance 2024 Figures
2
The White House. Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid
3
Congress.gov. Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
4
Millennium Challenge Corporation. Guide to the MCC Scorecard Indicators for Fiscal Year 2026
5
HIV.gov. PEPFAR
6
U.S. Department of State. FY 2026 Congressional Budget Justification
7
United States Department of State. Ten-Year Memorandum of Understanding Between the United States and Israel
8
Congress.gov. U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel – Overview and Developments Since October 7, 2023
9
Pew Research Center. Federal Workforce Shrank 10% in Trump’s First Year Back in Office
10
Office of Inspector General. OIG Oversight – USAID Overview
11
U.S. Government Publishing Office. Foreign Assistance Act of 1961