Azerbaijan to Increase Military Budget by almost 4% in 2026

“Twenty percent of next year’s [in 2025] budget expenditures are planned to be spent on defense and security because in the case of the Armenian militarization,” Sharifov said at the time.

That year, the defense and the security budget were increased by $1 billion.

The increase in military spending in Azerbaijan over the past years took place amidst heightened tensions with Armenia which continued following the end of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War of 2020 with several Azerbaijani attacks on Armenia and Baku’s takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijani officials, including Aliyev, have regularly accused Armenia of “revanchism” and of harboring territorial claims against Azerbaijan.

However, Armenia and Azerbaijan appear to have made significant strides in the peace process since Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan initialed the peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan alongside US President Donald Trump in Washington D.C on August 8.

In late August, Pashinyan said that his country’s defense may not see an increase in 2026, saying it was “logical” seeing as Armenia and Azerbaijan had “established peace.”