How UN Peacekeeping Mandates, Troops and Funding Work
The U.N. listed 11 peacekeeping missions and 59,376 uniformed personnel as of Oct. 31, 2025. CRS explains the U.S. assessment and the 25 percent payment cap.
NEW YORK, Nov. 6, 2026 — The United Nations listed 11 peacekeeping operations as of Oct. 31, 2025, with 59,376 uniformed personnel and 67,783 people in all, drawn from 121 contributing countries. The Department of Peace Operations’ fact sheet counted 50,963 troops, 934 military observers, 5,852 police and 1,627 staff officers among the uniformed total, plus international and local civilians and U.N. Volunteers. The organization has launched 71 peacekeeping operations since 1948.
Those figures describe a standing system, not a single mission. The Security Council adopts a resolution to establish each operation and to set its mandate. Member states then decide, separately, whether to send troops or police and how much assessed funding they will pay.
Who sends the troops, and who pays
The Congressional Research Service, in an April 9, 2024 brief, explained the division of labor. Some members, often called troop-contributing countries, voluntarily provide military and police personnel. Those governments pay their peacekeepers first; the United Nations reimburses them at a standard rate set by the General Assembly, about $1,428 per soldier per month at the time of that brief.
Money for most missions comes from assessed contributions, not from the U.N. regular budget. CRS reported that the General Assembly sets the peacekeeping scale of assessments every three years, based on a modified version of the regular-budget scale, and that the five permanent Security Council members are assessed at a higher rate than for the regular budget. For 2024, CRS said, the United Nations assessed the U.S. share at 26.94 percent. Since 1994, however, Congress has capped the U.S. payment at 25 percent. CRS reported that Congress appropriated $1.37 billion for most U.N. peacekeeping activities for fiscal 2024, up to that cap, and that the gap had left the United States with more than $1.1 billion in arrears since fiscal 2017.
The approved peacekeeping budget for July 2023 through June 2024 was $6.1 billion, CRS said. The U.N. fact sheet later put the approved budget for July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025, at about $5.6 billion. That later total, the United Nations noted, financed nine of the 11 missions; two observer missions, UNTSO in the Middle East and UNMOGIP in India and Pakistan, are paid from the regular budget.
CRS recorded that three missions in Africa — UNMISS in South Sudan, MINUSCA in the Central African Republic and MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of the Congo — accounted for more than half of the 2023-2024 budget. The October 2025 fact sheet still listed those three among the largest current operations.
Mandates have widened beyond the classic cease-fire observation mission. CRS wrote that the Security Council has increasingly authorized operations in complex environments “where there is little peace to keep,” including tasks such as protecting civilians, disarming armed groups, monitoring human rights or helping deliver humanitarian aid. Those tasks, the brief said, place additional financial demands on member states.
The United States, as a permanent member of the Security Council, plays a role in establishing, renewing and funding these missions, CRS noted. Congress authorizes and appropriates the U.S. share mainly through the Contributions for International Peacekeeping Activities account. That is why a U.N. troop table and a U.S. appropriations brief belong in the same explainer: one describes the force on the ground, the other describes how Washington pays — and where it has chosen not to pay the full assessed rate. Mandate and mission coverage continues on the international interventions hub and the United Nations page. See also the War Room and reporting on international organizations.
Sources
- United Nations: Peacekeeping missions summary of military and police (Oct. 31, 2025)
- Congressional Research Service: U.S. Funding of U.N. Peacekeeping (IF10597)
