Venezuela

Venezuela: Extreme Debt Levels, Collapsed State Capacity, Gaps in Military Data

Venezuela's economy totaled $119.8 billion in 2024, per the World Bank's WDI figures, with GDP per capita of $4,217.59 and a population of 28.41 million the same year — the lowest GDP per capita of any country in this briefing series. Government debt is projected at 308.7 percent of GDP in 2025, per the IMF's World Economic Outlook — by far the highest debt ratio in this briefing series, more than triple the country's annual economic output. The only reserves figure available, $9.79 billion, is from 2017, per World Bank WDI data; it is close to a decade old, predates years of further economic deterioration, and says nothing about Venezuela's current reserve position.

Military Capacity

The military-spending data for Venezuela is thin and inconsistent. World Bank WDI data lists military expenditure at $0.0 for 2024 — almost certainly a reporting gap rather than evidence of zero spending, given that active personnel stood at 123,000 in 2022, per the Correlates of War National Material Capabilities (COW NMC) dataset, which also puts Venezuela's composite index of national capability (CINC) at 0.0034 for that year, a force size comparable to several other mid-sized militaries in this series. A separate milex-to-GDP figure of 0.501 percent, also from World Bank WDI rather than SIPRI, is dated 2023 — one year off from the $0.0 figure above and from a different reporting year, so the two should not be read together as a consistent spending series. No SIPRI milex series is available for Venezuela in the supplied data, unlike most other countries in this briefing set.

Governance

V-Dem's 2025 figures (v15) score Venezuela's electoral democracy at 0.181 and liberal democracy at 0.042. Its state-capacity score of 0.009 is the lowest value recorded for any metric in this briefing series, consistent with a state whose administrative and enforcement functions have substantially eroded — a sharp contrast with the debt and reserves figures above, which describe a sovereign still formally carrying significant financial obligations despite that erosion.

Energy

Venezuela's primary energy consumption was 2.51 exajoules in 2024, and it generated 80.13 terawatt-hours of electricity the same year, per Our World in Data. Oil production was 576.0 TWh and gas production 317.3 TWh, both for 2024 — oil output more than seven times domestic electricity generation, and combined hydrocarbon output more than eleven times that figure. No export data was supplied to explain that gap, though the scale of production relative to domestic power generation is consistent with Venezuela's historical position as an oil producer.

Sources: World Bank WDI; IMF WEO; COW NMC; V-Dem v15; Our World in Data (Energy)