Developing procurement September 2, 2026 · WeaponSpecs News Desk

Poland's Domestic Arms Spending Nearly Quadruples Since 2022

Poland's spending on domestically made weapons hit 30.4 billion zlotys in 2025, up roughly four-fold since 2022, as Warsaw builds what officials call Europe's largest land army.

BWP Borsuk infantry fighting vehicle, a Polish-built tracked IFV manufactured by Huta Stalowa Wola

Photo by Staff Sgt. Matthew A. Foster, U.S. National Guard, Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Poland’s spending on weapons built inside its own borders reached 30.4 billion zlotys, about $8.15 billion, in 2025, according to Armaments Agency data analyzed by Reuters. That is roughly four times what Polish domestic industry earned from the country’s own military procurement in 2022, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine reordered defense planning across the continent. The shift matters less for the raw dollar figure than for what it changes: Poland has been the fastest-growing defense buyer in Europe for several years, and it is now increasingly steering that money toward its own factories instead of foreign suppliers.

“We’re building the largest land army in Europe,” Deputy State Assets Minister Konrad Golota told Reuters. Poland’s own Armed Forces have surpassed 220,000 personnel this year, and the country is spending to match that ambition: its 2026 core defense budget runs to roughly €53 billion, about $61.45 billion, the fourth-highest in the European Union behind France, Italy and Germany, up from €44 billion in 2025, according to NATO data cited in the same reporting. Along with Estonia, Poland is one of the few NATO members already close to the alliance’s newer target of spending 5% of GDP on defense by 2035, a marker most member states are still years from reaching.

The domestic-share push is deliberate policy, not a side effect of the spending increase. “If you want to sell in Poland, you have to invest in Poland, you have to transfer technology, you have to work on joint projects with us,” Golota said, describing conditions Warsaw is now attaching to foreign suppliers seeking Polish contracts. Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz framed the logic in blunter terms: “This is not merely an investment to ensure we have a highly developed defence industry, which serves as a driving force for the Polish economy, but a matter of supply chain independence.” Golota separately put the underlying calculation in terms any voter could follow: “The fact that something is used by our army and the fact that it’s manufactured in Poland is becoming increasingly important.”

That policy already has visible results beyond the topline spending figure. CSG has signed agreements with state defense group PGZ worth more than €100 million for 155mm ammunition components and €150 million for fighting-vehicle equipment. A joint venture between Grupa Niewiadow and KNDS Ammo France is set to produce 180,000 artillery rounds a year starting in 2027. PGZ and Frankenburg Technologies are establishing short-range air defense production inside Poland, and Rheinmetall, historically an exporter to Poland rather than a producer within it, is now building manufacturing capacity on Polish soil rather than shipping finished vehicles from Germany.

Polish Land Forces AHS Krab self-propelled howitzers firing during exercise Iron Defender — Polish Land Forces AHS Krab self-propelled howitzers fire during exercise Iron Defender. The Krab is built by Huta Stalowa Wola on a South Korean K9 Thunder-derived chassis with a BAE Systems AS-90 Braveheart turret. (Photo by Spc. Andre Gremillion Jr., U.S. Army, Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Huta Stalowa Wola, part of the PGZ group, sits at the center of this buildout. It builds both the tracked Borsuk infantry fighting vehicle and the 155mm Krab self-propelled howitzer, the two programs most closely identified with Poland’s domestic rearmament effort. The financing behind all of this runs through the EU’s new SAFE instrument: Poland became the first EU member state to sign a SAFE loan agreement, worth €43.7 billion, confirmed by both the European Commission and Poland’s own Ministry of Finance. The Commission disbursed the first tranche, €6.6 billion, or 15% of the total, on May 29, 2026, making Poland both the largest recipient of SAFE funding and the first country to actually receive a payment under the program.

The timing lines up with Poland’s own showcase for its defense industry. The MSPO exhibition in Kielce runs September 8 to 11, its 34th edition, with Canada serving as lead nation this year. It is the natural venue for Polish manufacturers to make the case that this week’s spending numbers describe a durable shift rather than a wartime spike, and for foreign buyers weighing whether to invest in Polish production lines rather than simply sell into the Polish market.

None of this guarantees the trend holds. A four-fold rise from a 2022 baseline is a large percentage move partly because that baseline was small, and sustaining it depends on Poland’s defense budget continuing to grow at anywhere near its recent pace, along with continued SAFE disbursements that are still only 15% delivered against the full €43.7 billion commitment. What is clear from the verified numbers is that Warsaw has moved past treating rearmament as an emergency purchase from wherever weapons could be bought fastest, and toward treating it as industrial policy: building the capacity to make its own tanks, guns and ammunition rather than simply buying them.

Sources