Defense budget · 2 min read
What the FY2026 defense request says about uncrewed systems
Roughly $15 billion, more than 500 programs, and a reconciliation bill on top. How we read the request, and why it's only the opening number.
The President's FY2026 budget request asks for about $15 billion for uncrewed systems across the Defense Department, a jump of roughly 50 percent in uncrewed funding. The HR1 reconciliation package adds another $4.4 billion for uncrewed programs on top of that.
Those are the headline numbers. The useful ones sit underneath, spread across more than 500 programs.
Where the numbers come from
Uncrewed systems don't have a single budget line. The money is spread across procurement and research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) accounts in organizations across the department.
Our process each year:
- Read the request. We go through the budget justifications and pull out every program and line item that funds uncrewed systems.
- Follow it through Congress. The NDAA authorizes and the appropriations act funds, and either can move a number. We track both to the final amount.
- Categorize. Each program gets a domain, a technology type and a development stage, so you can ask how much ground-robot RDT&E there is, not just how much money there is.
- Compare. The series goes back to 2014, which is what turns one year's numbers into a trend.
A request is not a check
The request is the administration's plan. Congress authorizes and appropriates, and both can add, cut or move money between lines. So we treat the request as the opening position and keep the dataset open until the final appropriation is in.
Using the data
The FY2026 analysis comes three ways: an interactive workbook you can filter by domain, technology, organization and year; the same workbook with an analyst's read on what it means for your market; or the raw dataset for your own models.