Albania Military - 2024

Military and security forces

Republic of Albania Armed Forces (Forcat e Armatosura të Republikës së Shqipërisë (FARSH); aka Albanian Armed Forces): Land Forces, Naval Force (includes Coast Guard), Air Forces

Ministry of Interior: Guard of the Republic, State Police (includes the Border and Migration Police) (2023)

note: the State Police are primarily responsible for internal security, including counterterrorism, while the Guard of the Republic protects senior state officials, foreign dignitaries, and certain state properties

Military expenditures

1.7% of GDP (2023 est.)
1.2% of GDP (2022)
1.2% of GDP (2021)
1.3% of GDP (2020)
1.5% of GDP (2019)

Military and security service personnel strengths

approximately 7,000 total active-duty personnel (5,000 Army; 1,500 Navy; 500 Air Force) (2023)

Military equipment inventories and acquisitions

since joining NATO, the military has been in the process of modernizing by retiring its inventory of Soviet-era weapons and replacing them with Western equipment, including donated and secondhand purchases  (2023)

Military service age and obligation

18-27 (up to 32 in some cases) for voluntary military service for men and women; conscription abolished 2010 (2023)

note: as of 2023, women comprised about 15% of the military's full-time personnel, including 20% of the officers

Military - note

the Albanian Armed Forces (AAF) are responsible for defending the country’s independence, sovereignty, and territory, assisting with internal security, providing disaster and humanitarian relief, and participating in international peacekeeping missions; the AAF has contributed small numbers of forces to several NATO missions since Albania joined NATO in 2009, including peacekeeping/stability missions in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Iraq, and multinational battlegroups in Bulgaria and Latvia; it has also contributed to EU and UN missions; the AAF is a small, lightly armed force that has been undergoing a modernization effort to improve its ability to fulfill NATO missions, including training and equipment purchases; the primary ground combat units include a few light infantry battalions (or battle groups), including one trained and certified for NATO missions, and a special operations regiment; the Naval Force and Coast Guard operate a small force of patrol boats while the Air Force has a small inventory of helicopters (2023)