Qatar

Qatar: High Per-Capita Wealth, Dated Military Spending Figures

Qatar's GDP reached $219.16 billion in 2024, per the World Bank's World Development Indicators, with GDP per capita of $76,689 the same year — among the highest figures in this dataset — against a population of 2.86 million. Government debt stood at 43.3 percent of GDP for 2026 per the IMF's World Economic Outlook, while reserves, drawn from the World Bank's WDI series, stood at $53.99 billion in 2024.

Defense spending data here is notably dated. SIPRI's figures put Qatari military expenditure at roughly $15.41 billion, or 6.5 percent of GDP on SIPRI's own GDP series, for 2022 — three years behind the 2025 milex figures used for most other countries in this set. That ratio should not be checked against the World Bank's $219.16 billion GDP estimate above, since SIPRI's GDP denominator is calculated separately, and the 2022 dating means it should not be treated as current spending. The Correlates of War National Material Capabilities (NMC) dataset lists 17,000 active personnel as of 2022 and a composite index of national capability (CINC) of 0.0018 for that year.

Governance indicators are low on electoral and liberal democracy, with a notably higher state capacity reading. V-Dem's 2025 data (v15) scores Qatar at 0.034 on electoral democracy and 0.091 on liberal democracy, against a state capacity score of 0.573 — a substantially higher administrative-capacity reading than its democracy scores would suggest.

Energy figures are current and large relative to population. Our World in Data's energy series lists primary energy consumption of 2.354 exajoules in 2024 and electricity generation of 56.18 terawatt-hours in 2025. Oil production stood at 877.85 terawatt-hours and gas production at 1,794.5 terawatt-hours, both for 2024.

Data gaps

The milex and milex-to-GDP figures are dated to 2022, three years older than the 2025 milex data used elsewhere in this country set, and should be flagged as such rather than read as current defense spending. No arms-trade, nuclear, or alliance-commitment data appears in this bundle.

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