Countries With the Most Nuclear Weapons: All Nine Arsenals Counted Down

Russia has the most nuclear weapons of any country, with a military stockpile of about 4,400 warheads, followed by the United States with about 3,700 and China with about 620, according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Status of World Nuclear Forces estimate for the start of 2026. Only nine states hold nuclear weapons at all, so the full list is short: after the top three come France (290), the United Kingdom (225), India (190), Pakistan (170), Israel (90) and North Korea (60). Those nine estimates add up to roughly 9,700 warheads in military stockpiles, and FAS puts the world total at about 12,187 once retired warheads still awaiting dismantlement are included.

The FAS 2026 count of nine nuclear-armed states

There is no tenth country to put in a top ten. South Africa had developed nuclear weapons by 1982 and dismantled them around 1989, and Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus handed the Soviet warheads on their soil to Russia after 1991. Every figure below except the American and Russian ones is an estimate built from satellite imagery, budgets, missile counts and fissile-material calculations, and the FAS authors (Hans Kristensen, Matt Korda and colleagues) revise them every year. The table uses the military stockpile, meaning warheads assigned to armed forces, whether deployed on missiles and bombers or held in reserve.

Other trackers land close to these numbers but not on them. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimated a world total of 12,121 warheads in its 2024 count, and Israeli estimates in particular range from 80 up to 400. The order of the ranking, though, is the same in every mainstream source. Counting down from the smallest arsenal:

Numbers 9 to 7: North Korea, Israel and Pakistan

9. North Korea, about 60 warheads. North Korea has the smallest arsenal and the newest. It joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1985, expelled inspectors and announced its withdrawal in 2003, and carried out six underground tests at Punggye-ri between 2006 and 2017, which makes it the only country confirmed to have tested a nuclear weapon this century. FAS credits it with enough fissile material for six to seven new warheads a year and with intercontinental missiles such as the Hwasong-17, so this is the entry most likely to climb.

8. Israel, about 90. Israel has never confirmed or denied having nuclear weapons, a policy of deliberate ambiguity summed up in its line that it "will not be the first" to introduce them to the Middle East. Its first deliverable weapon is thought to date from late 1966 or early 1967, built with material from the Negev Nuclear Research Center near Dimona. Estimated delivery systems include Jericho ballistic missiles, fighter aircraft and cruise missiles on Dolphin-class submarines. Israel has never signed the NPT.

7. Pakistan, about 170. Pakistan's programme began in 1972 under Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, after the 1971 war with India, and went public with the Chagai-I tests in the Ras Koh Hills of Balochistan on 28 May 1998, shortly after India's second round of tests. Its doctrine, called full spectrum deterrence, does not rule out first use. Most warheads are assigned to about 126 land-based missiles, with roughly 36 more for Mirage III and Mirage 5 aircraft; the Babur-III submarine-launched cruise missile is still in development.

Numbers 6 and 5: India and the United Kingdom

6. India, about 190. India tested its first device, Smiling Buddha, at Pokhran in Rajasthan on 18 May 1974 and followed with the Operation Shakti series in 1998. It declares a no-first-use policy, qualified to allow a nuclear response to a major chemical or biological attack. Its warheads are spread across a young triad: about 80 Prithvi-II and Agni missiles, 48 Mirage 2000H and Jaguar aircraft, and Sagarika missiles on two Arihant-class submarines. India stays outside the NPT but received a Nuclear Suppliers Group waiver in 2008, the only non-NPT state to do so.

5. United Kingdom, about 225. Britain was the third country to test a bomb, codenamed Hurricane, off the Monte Bello Islands in Australia on 3 October 1952. Since 1998 its only weapon has been the Trident II missile, carried by four Vanguard-class submarines based at HMNB Clyde in Scotland, and about 120 warheads are deployed. The Royal Navy has kept at least one armed submarine on patrol at all times since 1969. In 2016 the House of Commons voted to replace the Vanguards with the Dreadnought class, and in 2025 the government announced it would buy 12 F-35A jets able to carry American B61 bombs.

Number 4: France and its Triomphant submarines

4. France, about 290. France tested its first bomb, Gerboise Bleue, at Reggane in the Algerian Sahara on 13 February 1960, and Charles de Gaulle made an independent deterrent a pillar of French policy so that Paris would not depend on Washington. The arsenal peaked at about 540 warheads in 1992, and France held third place in the world until China overtook it in 2020. Today roughly 240 warheads sit on 48 M51 missiles aboard four Triomphant-class submarines, and about 50 are assigned to Rafale fighters armed with the ASMP-A cruise missile, including a small number set aside for the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. France retired its land-based missiles, kept in silos at Apt–Saint-Christol air base, in 1996, so like Britain it has no weapons on land. In 2026 President Emmanuel Macron announced the first increase in the French warhead count since 1992.

Number 3: China’s build-up from Lop Nur to 620 warheads

3. China, about 620. China exploded its first device, known as 596, at Lop Nur in Xinjiang on 16 October 1964 and carried out all 45 of its tests there. For decades it kept a small force built around a policy, declared in 1964, of never using nuclear weapons first. That is changing faster than anywhere else on this list: the arsenal is projected to reach 1,000 warheads by 2030 and as many as 1,500 by 2035. About 509 warheads are assigned to Dongfeng ballistic missiles, 72 to JL-3 missiles on Type 094 submarines and 20 to H-6 bombers, and China is building larger missile silo fields, the Xi'an H-20 stealth bomber and the Type 096 submarine. China still refuses bilateral arms-control talks with the United States, arguing that its arsenal remains far smaller.

Numbers 2 and 1: the United States and Russia after New START

2. United States, about 3,700. The United States tested the first nuclear weapon, Trinity, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, on 16 July 1945, and remains the only country to have used one in war, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Its stockpile peaked at 31,175 warheads in 1966. Counting retired warheads awaiting dismantlement, the total inventory is about 5,177. Around 1,670 strategic warheads are deployed across a triad of 400 Minuteman III missiles in silos, Trident II missiles on 14 Ohio-class submarines, and B-2 and B-52 bombers, and roughly 100 B61 bombs are stored in six European NATO countries: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Replacements for every leg (the Columbia-class submarine, the Sentinel missile and the B-21 bomber) are due from 2029.

1. Russia, about 4,400. Russia inherited the Soviet arsenal, which began with the RDS-1 test at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan on 29 August 1949 and reached about 45,000 warheads in 1986, the largest any country has ever held. The Soviet Union also set off Tsar Bomba in 1961, at 50 megatons still the most powerful explosion ever made by people. Russia's total inventory, including retired warheads, is about 5,420, with roughly 1,800 strategic warheads deployed on missiles in silos, road-mobile launchers such as the RS-24 Yars, Bulava and Sineva missiles on submarines, and Tu-160 and Tu-95 bombers. Russia also holds the world's largest stock of tactical nuclear weapons, about 1,500, and has placed tactical systems in Belarus since 2023.

The gap between the top two and everyone else is the legacy of the Cold War arms race, which pushed the world total to about 70,300 active weapons in 1986. The total has since fallen by more than four-fifths, largely through US–Soviet and US–Russian treaties. The last of them, New START, signed in Prague on 8 April 2010, capped each side at 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and allowed 18 on-site inspections a year. Russia suspended its participation on 21 February 2023, and the treaty expired on 5 February 2026, leaving the two largest arsenals without a treaty cap on deployed warheads. Between them, Russia and the United States still hold close to nine in every ten warheads on Earth.

For when and how each of these nine states crossed the threshold, see our guide to which countries have nuclear weapons; the civilian side of the same technology is ranked in the countries with the most nuclear reactors, and the conventional forces behind these arsenals are compared in the countries with the largest militaries.