New Zealand

New Zealand: High-Income Stability, Light Defense Footprint

New Zealand's economy was valued at $260.2 billion in 2024, per the World Bank's World Development Indicators, with GDP per capita of $49,205 and a population of 5.29 million the same year. Government debt stood at 56.7 percent of GDP for 2026 on the IMF's World Economic Outlook, and central bank reserves reached $28.17 billion in 2025 according to IMF International Financial Statistics — a comparatively comfortable buffer relative to the debt figure.

Defense spending is modest in both absolute and relative terms. SIPRI's 2025 military expenditure data puts outlay at roughly $2.86 billion, or 1.102 percent of GDP on SIPRI's own GDP series — a figure that should not be read against the World Bank's GDP estimate above, as the two series are not directly comparable. The Correlates of War National Material Capabilities (NMC) dataset lists 9,000 active personnel as of 2022 and a composite index of national capability (CINC) of 0.00071 for that year, consistent with a small standing force.

Governance indicators are strong across the board. V-Dem's 2025 data (v15) scores New Zealand at 0.849 on electoral democracy, 0.787 on liberal democracy, and 0.989 on state capacity — among the highest readings this dataset records for any metric tracked here.

Energy data shows a country with meaningful domestic production relative to its size historically, though the production figures are dated. Our World in Data's energy series lists primary energy consumption of 0.839 exajoules in 2024 and electricity generation of 43.34 terawatt-hours in 2025, both current. Oil production (22.911 TWh) and gas production (53.482 TWh), however, are both sourced to 2016 and should be treated as a historical snapshot rather than current output.

Data gaps

The oil and gas production figures are a decade old (2016) and are flagged here as stale rather than representative of present-day output. No arms-trade, nuclear, or alliance-commitment data appears in this bundle. The SIPRI milex-to-GDP ratio is calculated on SIPRI's internal GDP series, not the World Bank's $260.2 billion WDI figure cited above, and the two should not be divided against one another.

Sources: World Bank WDI, IMF WEO, IMF IFS, SIPRI Milex, COW NMC, V-Dem v15, Our World in Data (Energy).