These Countries Get the Most Foreign Aid From the U.S.

U.S. foreign aid spending recently surpassed $70 billion in appropriated funds for the first time in 70 years, new data shows, fueled by continued support of Israel and a spike in funding for Ukraine amid the country’s war with Russia.

That recent high isn’t the result of a slow climb, nor is it due to inflation. In constant dollars, U.S. foreign aid obligations jumped from $56.3 billion in 2021 to $70.4 billion in 2022, the latest year for which final data is available from a federal tracker. That marks an increase of more than 25%, and there are only three years on record when the U.S. devoted more to foreign aid: 1947, 1949 and 1951, when the global landscape looked very different following World War II and the establishment of the United Nations.

A website run by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, ForeignAssistance.gov, lists international aid from more than 20 U.S. government agencies. The site defines foreign assistance as including “activities funded from appropriations accounts that are made available for assistance for foreign countries, international organizations, and other foreign entities, which may include funds, goods, services, and technical assistance.”

Foreign aid obligations by the U.S. in the federal tracker include both economic support – which includes humanitarian spending – and military support. The aid can range from counterterrorism initiatives funded by the Department of State to programs combating HIV/AIDS funded by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Recent data from the tracker shows that the share of military aid from the U.S. dropped from 23% in 2020 to less than 13% in 2021, its smallest share since 1949. Prior to 2021, military spending for decades made up at least 20% of annual foreign aid obligations. In 2022, that share rebounded slightly to reach 14%.

In contrast, the share of aid in the form of economic assistance was larger in 2021 and 2022 than it had been in decades, making up about 86% of listed obligations in 2022.

How Much Aid Does the U.S. Give to Israel? 

In 2022, U.S. agencies allotted Israel about $3.3 billion in aid, nearly all of which was designated as military aid. The country received a similar amount in 2021 – more than twice the amount for any other country that year.

Over the last decade, Israel has typically gotten between 8% and 10% of all country-specific foreign aid obligations annually, but that share dropped to less than 7% in 2022.

Meanwhile, Palestinian territories the West Bank and Gaza accounted for about $154 million in foreign aid obligations in 2022, up slightly from $131 million in 2021.

How Much Aid Does the U.S. Give to Ukraine? 

In 2022, Ukraine surpassed Israel as the top U.S. aid recipient, taking in more than $12 billion after Russia launched its invasion in February of that year. That amounts to more than 25% of all aid designated for specific countries in 2022.

In 2021, prior to Russia’s invasion, Ukraine was not among the top 20 recipients of U.S. foreign aid, ranking No. 21 with about $478 million.

What Is the Aid Supposed to Be Spent On?

Countries involved in ongoing conflicts typically receive significant amounts of military aid, while countries in Africa typically receive a significant portion of humanitarian aid, and aid for health and infrastructure.

For example, Ukraine, Israel and Egypt far surpassed all countries in 2022 for aid in the “governance” category, which accounts for the vast majority of obligated military aid captured by the tracker, while countries such as Ethiopia, Yemen and Afghanistan were allotted larger amounts earmarked for humanitarian assistance.

Notably, the federal tracking site says foreign aid obligations may be distributed right away or in the future, but that funds must be available before an obligation is made.

Several countries, including the U.S., are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee, meaning they give “official development assistance” to developing countries. While the U.S. is the largest OECD donor of development assistance worldwide by strict dollar amount, it is surpassed when this aid is measured as a percentage of a country’s gross national income, or GNI, which measures a country’s gross domestic product plus the income it receives from its companies or citizens abroad.

By that measure, Luxembourg gave 1% of its GNI and topped the list in 2022, followed by Sweden (0.9%), Norway (0.9%), Germany (0.8%) and Denmark (0.7%). The U.S. gave 0.22% of its GNI in official development assistance, ranking No. 26 on the list.

Countries That Received the Most Foreign Aid From the U.S. in 2022:

Countries That Received the Least Foreign Aid From the U.S. in 2022:

Does the U.S. Spend Too Much?

According to public opinion surveys, a majority of Americans believe too much of the federal budget is spent on foreign aid. But most Americans overestimate what the share really is. A past Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that respondents estimated foreign aid to constitute 26% of the federal budget on average. In reality, foreign assistance typically makes up less than 1% of the trillions of dollars in federal spending.

Still, the U.S. gives more money in foreign aid in total dollars than any other country in the world, distributing more than $640 billion globally from 2012 through 2022.

To put the $70 billion for 2022 into context, if all foreign aid appropriations were doled out by a single agency in the U.S. government, that agency would have spent slightly more than the Department of Housing and Urban Development ($67.8 billion) but much less than the Department of Homeland Security ($133 billion) in fiscal year 2022.

Preliminary figures for 2023 currently indicate U.S. foreign aid may have dipped back down to about $45 billion, but data is incomplete.