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HOW THE U.S. INVESTS IN A BETTER WORLD

As the world’s largest economy, the U.S. has been an essential financial contributor to the UN since the organization’s founding. The UN’s regular and peacekeeping budgets are approved by the General Assembly. In 2024, the U.S. share of the UN regular budget was $707 million — about one-tenth of the Delaware state budget.

Funding from Member States comes from two broad sources: assessed and voluntary contributions.

Assessed contributions are payments that all Member States are required to make under the UN Charter. Assessments provide a reliable source of funding to core functions of the Secretariat through the UN regular and peacekeeping budgets. UN specialized agencies have their own assessed budgets.

Voluntary contributions are made at the discretion of Member States and vital to the work of the UN’s humanitarian and development agencies that do not have assessed budgets, like UNICEF, UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and World Food Programme (WFP).

Download the 2025 UN, Explained Brief on the UN Budget

American businesses receive more in contracts with UN agencies than the U.S. pays in regular and peacekeeping dues.

Assessments

Member State assessment rates are determined by the General Assembly, with renegotiations every three years. During the latest assessments in December 2024, the U.S. maintained a ceiling of 22% on regular budget dues (the only developed country in the world with such a cap on payments to the UN regular budget). The U.S. now pays 26.15% of UN peacekeeping costs, lower than the previous 27%. With the current 2024-2025 peacekeeping budget of $5.59 billion, the lower contribution rate would result in annual cost savings of roughly $44.5 million for American taxpayers. This stands in contrast to China’s peacekeeping rate of 23.78% (up from 15% in 2019-2021), costing them an additional $306 million annually.

HOW CONGRESS ALLOCATES FUNDING

In recent years, U.S. assessments for the UN regular budget, peacekeeping operations and specialized agencies account for around $3 billion annually – or 0.06% of the total federal budget. These funds are provided by Congress through three accounts in the State Department, Foreign Operations and Related Programs (SFOPS) appropriations bill. Other funding is provided through a separate account.

Explore the sources of funding here.

  • Contributions to International Organizations (CIO)

    CIO funds U.S. assessments for the UN regular budget and more than 40 other international organizations, including UN specialized agencies and non-UN organizations such as NATO and the Organization of American States.

  • Contributions for International Peacekeeping Activities (CIPA)

    CIPA funds U.S. assessments for eleven UN peacekeeping missions, including critical operations in the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Golan Heights, Lebanon and South Sudan. All missions are approved by the UN Security Council and play an essential role in promoting stability, protecting civilians and mitigating conflict in strategically significant regions of the world.

  • Peacekeeping Operations (PKO)

    The PKO account supports several non-UN regional peacekeeping operations and bilateral security initiatives, as well, including an international observer force in the Sinai Peninsula and the UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) that help local forces defeat Al-Shabaab, a terrorist group linked to Al-Qaeda.

  • International Organizations and Programs (IO&P)

    Additional funding for UN agencies is appropriated through IO&P, which supports voluntary U.S. contributions to specialized agencies like UNICEF and the World Food Programme, who focus on development, humanitarian and scientific activities.

READ PERSPECTIVE FROM BWC ON CURRENT BUDGET ISSUES