India's Defence Exports Reached a Record ₹38,424 Crore in 2025-26, 56 Times the ₹686 Crore of 2013-14, With Private Firms Supplying 45 Per Cent

The Ministry of Defence announced on 2 April 2026 that India’s defence exports in the financial year 2025-26 reached ₹38,424 crore, the highest on record and ₹14,802 crore (62.66 per cent) above the ₹23,622 crore of 2024-25. A crore is ten million rupees, so the total is about 384 billion rupees. The figure for 2013-14 was ₹686 crore, which makes the latest year 56 times as large.

The ministry counts 145 exporting companies, up from 128 a year earlier, and says Indian equipment goes to more than 80 countries. As of 15 October 2026 that release is the newest annual total. The ministry released the totals for 2022-23, 2024-25 and 2025-26 on 1 April 2023, 1 April 2025 and 2 April 2026, the day after each financial year closed.

The ministry’s figures, year by year

The Press Information Bureau (PIB), the government’s release service, has published the series across several releases. In ₹ crore, for financial years ending 31 March:

• 2013-14: 686
• 2016-17: 1,521
• 2017-18: 4,682
• 2018-19: 10,745
• 2019-20: 9,115
• 2020-21: 8,434
• 2021-22: 12,814
• 2022-23: 15,920
• 2023-24: 21,083
• 2024-25: 23,622
• 2025-26: 38,424

The climb was not a straight line. Exports reached ₹10,745 crore in 2018-19, slipped for two years, and passed that level again in 2021-22. Since then every year has set a record, with growth of 32.5 per cent in 2023-24, 12.04 per cent in 2024-25 and 62.66 per cent in 2025-26. For 2024-25 the ministry gave a dollar equivalent of about US$2.76 billion.

Public sector units led the jump

The ministry splits each total between the 16 state-owned defence companies (defence public sector undertakings, or DPSUs) and private firms. In 2025-26 DPSUs exported ₹21,071 crore, up 151 per cent from ₹8,389 crore, and private firms exported ₹17,353 crore, up 14 per cent from ₹15,233 crore. That gives DPSUs 54.84 per cent of the total and the private sector 45.16 per cent.

By the ministry’s own numbers, DPSUs account for ₹12,682 crore of the ₹14,802 crore increase. Private exports were ₹15,209 crore in 2023-24, ₹15,233 crore in 2024-25 and ₹17,353 crore in 2025-26, so they have risen in each of the last three years, though more slowly than the state-owned side.

Private firms make a larger share of exports than of output. A PIB backgrounder of 17 June 2026 puts domestic defence production at a record ₹1.78 lakh crore in 2025-26, with DPSUs and other public companies contributing about 76 per cent and private firms 24 per cent. A lakh crore is a trillion rupees.

What the ministry says India sells

The ministry has named products in several releases. The 1 April 2023 release lists the Dornier-228 aircraft, 155 mm Advanced Towed Artillery Guns, BrahMos missiles, the Akash missile system, radars, simulators, mine-protected and armoured vehicles, Pinaka rockets and launchers, ammunition, thermal imagers and body armour, plus avionics and small-arms parts. A February 2025 release adds bulletproof jackets, Chetak helicopters, fast interceptor boats and lightweight torpedoes.

Some of that is whole platforms and some is components. The 1 April 2025 release says exports covered ammunition, arms, sub-systems and systems, and parts and components, and the 2026 release calls India “a successful global partner for systems/sub-systems”. ThePrint reported on 2 April 2026 that American companies buy sub-systems from India, including fuselages, and that the United States has become the biggest export destination. It also reported that DPSU exports are mainly munitions, fuses and lightweight torpedoes and, citing sources, that private firms export armoured vehicles, small arms, bulletproof jackets and drones.

The ministry named three buyers for 2023-24: the United States, France and Armenia. For missiles the public record is clearest on BrahMos, the supersonic cruise missile built by BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture of India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya. On 28 January 2022 BrahMos Aerospace signed a $374.96 million contract to supply shore-based anti-ship missiles to the Philippine Navy, India’s first export order for the missile. The first missiles reached the Philippines by Indian Air Force C-17 transport aircraft on 19 April 2024. DRDO’s own test flights from June to July 2026 are covered in our account of its missile test series.

On 30 May 2026 Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh told the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that a BrahMos deal with Vietnam had been signed. ThePrint’s report of his remarks gives no contract value. The ministry’s November 2025 backgrounder places the Tejas fighter at the stage of export discussions.

The Navy’s own side of Indian shipbuilding, nine Indian-built ships commissioned in 2026, is in our list of the year’s commissionings.

The target and the date attached to it

The draft Defence Production and Export Promotion Policy of 2020 set a target of ₹35,000 crore by 2025, within a ₹1.75 lakh crore turnover goal for aerospace and defence goods and services. The draft words the ₹35,000 crore both as aerospace and defence goods and services and as defence exports. The 2024-25 total was ₹23,622 crore. The 2025-26 total of ₹38,424 crore passed ₹35,000 crore a year later, on the ministry’s count.

The current goal is ₹50,000 crore by 2029, which PIB releases from April 2025 to June 2026 repeat. The February and November 2025 releases pair it with ₹3 lakh crore of domestic production. Rajnath Singh, the Defence Minister, used the wording 2029-30 in a speech at the 65th foundation day of IIT Kanpur, which All India Radio reported on 3 November 2024. From ₹38,424 crore, ₹50,000 crore needs a further ₹11,576 crore, about 30 per cent more.

Rules that changed for exporters

The 2020 draft policy proposed using Open General Export Licences (OGELs) for selected equipment going to friendly countries. An OGEL is a standing authorisation: an exporter holding one can self-generate authorisations for multiple consignments of listed items, without applying for each shipment. By April 2023 the government had notified three, covering parts and components, transfer of technology, and major platforms and equipment.

The ministry’s April 2025 release lists other changes, including simpler industrial licensing, removal of parts and components from the licence regime and longer licence validity. It reported 1,762 export authorisations in 2024-25 against 1,507 the year before, a rise of 16.92 per cent, issued through the Department of Defence Production’s online portal. The November 2025 backgrounder adds that foreign direct investment in defence is allowed up to 74 per cent through the automatic route.

On 28 August 2026 the ministry announced a further set of changes, as ThePrint reported that day:

• The three OGEL procedures were merged into one.
• OGEL validity went from two years to three.
• Coverage widened from 41 countries to all countries except those it classes as negative or sensitive and those under UN Security Council sanctions or arms embargoes.
• Stakeholder consultation was dropped for non-lethal items to most destinations and for items sent to international tenders and exhibitions.
• Civil end-use exports of specified small-calibre arms parts and protective equipment were permitted.

The 17 June 2026 backgrounder adds that five Positive Indigenisation Lists, covering 5,012 DPSU items marked for supply by Indian industry, had been notified up to May 2026. Those lists concern domestic sourcing, not exports.

Reading an export figure

The totals come from the ministry, and the ministry’s releases leave several things open. They do not say whether a year’s figure counts shipments, contracts or authorisations. In its 2023 year-end review the ministry reported 1,310 export authorisations issued to 73 countries during the year, worth ₹13,345 crore. An authorisation is permission to export, and the review gives it as a separate figure from the exports total.

Country counts differ between releases: more than 80 in March 2023, more than 85 in April 2023, more than 100 in February 2025, around 80 for 2024-25 in April 2025, and more than 80 again in April 2026. The November 2025 backgrounder uses both around 80 and over 100. In the March 2023 Rajya Sabha reply the ministry said it could not name the countries “due to strategic reasons”. The 2 April 2026 release gives no shares for individual buyers.

Figures also move slightly between releases. The 2018-19 total is ₹10,746 crore in a March 2023 reply and ₹10,745 crore in the release of 1 April 2023.

An outside measure uses different units. SIPRI, the Stockholm institute that tracks the arms trade, counts the volume of major arms transferred in its own trend-indicator value, not the rupee value of sales. Its March 2026 fact sheet lists the United States (42 per cent), France, Russia, Germany and China as the five largest exporters in 2021 to 2025, together 70 per cent of the total, and describes India as the world’s second-largest importer, with 8.2 per cent of arms imports. A contract can also be signed before anyone announces it. Of the Vietnam BrahMos deal, the Defence Secretary said on 30 May 2026 that it was “probably not publicly announced, but it’s already been signed”.