The Armed Forces spent 85% of their 2023 budget on personnel expenses, driven by the increasing costs of active military, retirees, and pensioners. The spending-heavy profile on salaries and benefits distances Brazil from its goal of budgetary modernization, using NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) as a model.
Personnel expenses put pressure on the remaining budgets of the Navy, Army, and Air Force. In 2023, the Brazilian Armed Forces allocated only 5% of their expenses to investments (R$ 5.8 billion - $1.2 billion) and 10% to operational costs (R$ 11.3 billion- $2.2 billion).
The numbers were compiled by Folha using the final budgets of 2023 available on the Transparency Portal.
The breakdown shows that the Armed Forces spent four times more on military pension payments (R$ 25.7 billion -$5.6 billion) than on investments — a scenario that is expected to be alleviated with the new Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), which allocated R$ 52.8 billion -$10.7 billion for Defense projects until 2030.