How Much Does the U.S. Fund the United Nations?

Introduction

The United Nations is the world’s principal organization for deliberating matters of peace and security, but its work encompasses far more than peacekeeping and conflict prevention. The UN system includes scores of entities dedicated to a range of areas including health and humanitarian needs, as well as cultural and economic development. As a founding member of the United Nations and the host to its headquarters, the United States has been a major funder of the organization since its founding in 1945.

The United States remains the largest donor to the United Nations today. In 2025, it was responsible for 22 percent of the UN regular budget, which finances the day-to-day operations of the organization and its primary activities, and approximately 26 percent of the UN peacekeeping budget. Since the outset of his second term, however, President Donald Trump has made significant cuts to U.S. funding—as he did in his first term. He is also reducing U.S. engagement due to what he says is the United Nations’ inability to solve global conflicts, certain agencies’ politically divisive agendas, and the disparity in financial contributions among wealthier countries.

How is the United Nations funded?

All 193 members of the United Nations are required to make payments to certain parts of the organization as a condition of membership, per the UN Charter. The amount each member must pay annually, known as its assessed contribution, varies widely and is determined by a formula that considers their gross national income, debt burden, and population, among other factors. The UN General Assembly determines a regular budget scale of assessments every three years based on a state’s capacity to pay.

These assessed dues, or mandatory contributions, help fund the United Nations’ regular budget, which covers the body’s core administrative and operational costs, including the General Assembly, the Secretariat, and special political missions. These contributions also finance specialized UN agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization. 

However, many member states have fallen behind on their payments. As of April 30, 2025, cumulative unpaid assessments to the regular budget totaled approximately $2.4 billion. Of that, the United States owes about $1.5 billion; other major debtors include China, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.

Members can also make voluntary contributions. Many UN organizations, such as the UN Children’s Fund, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the World Food Program (WFP), rely mainly on such contributions—considered discretionary funding.

How much is the United States assessed to pay?

In 2025, the U.S. assessment of the UN regular budget was 22 percent, or more than $820 million [PDF] of the approved $3.72 billion total. This is an increase of nearly $58 million from the previous year and a significant rise from 1994, when the United States was responsible for only about $300 million [PDF], or 25 percent, of the roughly $1.06 billion total. Because the United States is assessed a fixed percentage of the UN regular budget, its contribution could increase when the overall United Nations budget increases. (These figures are net, rather than gross, assessed contributions, which factor in credits for countries that do not tax UN staff’s earnings.)

Separately, the United Nations’ fiscal year 2025–26 peacekeeping budget was roughly $5.4 billion. The United States was assessed at the highest rate of all countries for this budget—roughly 26 percent, despite a congressionally mandated cap of 25 percent on annual contributions that has been in place since 1995. The U.S. 2025 peacekeeping budget was approximately $1.2 billion [PDF], though total contributions for 2025 remain unclear, as this amount was cut by nearly $158 million in a rescissions package.

What UN funding has the second Trump administration cut?

Since taking office in January, Trump has initiated sweeping cuts to U.S. funding and membership for multiple UN bodies—starting with the WHO. On his first day, Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the organization, saying it “continues to demand unfairly onerous payments from the United States.” The order froze all funding to the agency—the United States is its largest single donor—and recalled U.S. government personnel working with the WHO. He also issued an executive order mandating a comprehensive review of all U.S. support to international organizations, though it has not yet been released.

In February, the UN Human Rights Council was next to be cut from the U.S. agenda. The administration formally ended its participation in the body, citing grievances including claims of anti-American and anti-Israeli bias, the protection of human rights abusers, and the body’s overall ineffectiveness. It also permanently halted funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the largest operating health-care provider in Gaza. Then in July, the administration announced its withdrawal from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), alleging that the agency promotes “woke, divisive” cultural causes.

In addition to targeted withdrawals, the Trump administration has scaled back U.S. involvement in UN initiatives. In January, it withdrew for the second time from the Paris Agreement, a landmark deal that aims to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. It also terminated dozens of grants for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) totaling roughly $380 million, which provided health care and support in emergency humanitarian settings.

The administration’s budget priorities in 2025 further exemplified its reduced engagement with international organizations. In July, Trump signed a $9 billion rescissions package, with the majority of cuts affecting international aid programs administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of State, including those focused on humanitarian and development aid. Trump announced a second package of cuts in August to cancel nearly $4 billion in foreign aid spending; however, the administration’s use of a so-called pocket rescission is facing legal challenges. 

Several agencies have felt the effects of reduced funding. WFP—which relies on the United States for nearly half its budget—was forced to shut down its Southern Africa bureau due to funding constraints, according to DC-based nonpartisan organization Better World Campaign. Meanwhile, thousands of personnel working on HIV/AIDS have been terminated in Kenya, and programs that assist Sudanese refugees in Chad have been severely affected, leading to a reduction in or suspension of essential services like food and education.

​​Has the United States sought to cut UN funding in the past?

Past U.S. presidents and lawmakers have sought to decrease payments to the United Nations. In the late 1990s, Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) led an effort to force reforms at the United Nations by withholding U.S. contributions. The United States nearly lost its vote at the General Assembly as millions of dollars in unpaid assessments accrued. The instability ended in 2001 with a compromise between Congress and the United Nations. The deal, struck by Helms and Joe Biden—then a Democratic senator representing Delaware—reduced the U.S. share of the UN administrative budget from 25 percent to 22 percent.

During Trump’s first term, his administration sought to pare down or eliminate voluntary contributions to many UN programs, targeting several specialized agencies. He also focused on assessed U.S. funding to the United Nations, arguing that the United States was paying too much and other countries needed to contribute more. His administration prepared a draft executive order that called for a 40 percent overall decrease in U.S. funding to the United Nations, but it was never formally published or signed.

Following the practices of previous Republican administrations, the Trump administration also suspended all funding for UNFPA in 2017 after expanding a ban on U.S. contributions to organizations that perform or promote abortions as a method of family planning—the so-called Mexico City policy. That same year, the United States left UNESCO over what it perceived as anti-Israel bias, and in 2020, the administration froze funding to the WHO and announced that the United States would withdraw from the body—a decision Biden later reversed.

What impact have U.S. funding cuts had?

Experts say that U.S. aid cuts are undermining the country’s strategic influence within the UN system and have geopolitical implications. “The pullback of U.S. funding will limit the United States’ ability to shape the UN system, to maintain its leadership of UN agencies, and to put the UN tools, especially in peacemaking situations, to use,” wrote Allison Lombardo, senior associate with the Humanitarian Agenda and Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “In fact, even without investing financially, there is now an opportunity for [China] to highlight the untrustworthiness of Americans and abandonment by the West.”

China has become a more assertive player at the United Nations in recent years, using its veto power in the Security Council more frequently—including aligning with Russia to block resolutions on Syria—and promoting an alternative vision of global governance. Traditionally focused on UN development work, China is now expanding its influence in UN peace operations. In 2017, for example, Beijing agreed to host a UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs liaison office to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

China has also stood out as one of the countries that has boosted its financial commitments to the United Nations. In 2025, China was assessed at roughly 20 percent of the regular UN budget—a far cry from the 0.77 percent [PDF] that it was assessed at in 1994—and nearly 23 percent of the peacekeeping budget, making it the second-largest contributor to both after the United States. This was followed by Japan and Germany, respectively, for both budgets.

However, while China provides more peacekeeping personnel than any other permanent member of the UN Security Council, it was just the eighth-largest overall personnel contributor as of July 2025. That is about one-third that of the top contributor, Nepal. In comparison, the United States contributes very few personnel, at just twenty-two. This dynamic “reflects an unspoken arrangement that has emerged over the last quarter century,” wrote Mark Leon Goldberg for Global Dispatches. “Developing countries provide the boots on the ground, while wealthier countries provide the bulk of the funding to deploy and sustain these missions.”

Although the United States has historically contributed relatively few troops for UN peacekeeping missions, Washington adopted stricter conditions for doing so after eighteen U.S. soldiers were killed while serving under a UN mission in Somalia in 1993.