Iran War Has Cost $25 Billion So Far, Pentagon Says

The war in Iran has cost about $25 billion so far, Pentagon officials told Congress on April 29, providing the first public estimate of the cost of Operation Epic Fury.

“Approximately, at this day, we’re spending about $25 billion on Operation Epic Fury,” Jules “Jay” Hurst III, the Pentagon’s acting comptroller and chief financial officer, said during testimony to the House Armed Services Committee.

Hurst said most of that sum is in the cost of munitions, with the balance paying for operations and maintenance and “equipment replacement.” Among the military’s losses have been radars and airplanes, as well as some base facilities.

The Pentagon is planning a supplemental budget request to cover the cost of the war, Hurst said, but has yet to compile a complete estimate of those costs, which are continuing.

“We will formulate a supplemental through the White House that will come to Congress once we have a full assessment of the cost of the conflict,” Hurst said in response to a question from Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the committee’s ranking member of the minority. Hurst testified in front of the HASC alongside Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine.

The Trump administration launched the war to block Iran’s potential path to nuclear weapons, administration officials have said, and while much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure was damaged in last June’s Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran has so far refused to relinquish its stores of highly enriched uranium or to renounce its nuclear program.

The Pentagon has expended thousands of pricey precision munitions in its war against Iran, including more than 1,000 JASSM air-launched cruise missiles and more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, according to U.S. officials, open-source estimates, and an analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The U.S. has also used 1,000 Patriot interceptors, the think tank estimates, and hundreds of other THAAD, SM-3, and SM-6 interceptors.

Over six weeks of conflict, the U.S. attacked over 13,000 targets inside Iran, according to the U.S. military. Multiple munitions are typically used against a single target. The U.S. military also intercepted more than 1,700 Iranian ballistic missiles and one-way attack drones, Caine said earlier this month.

CSIS estimates the cost of JASSMs and Tomahawks at around $2.6 million each, and missile interceptors at multiple millions of dollars per unit.

U.S. military losses include numerous aircraft, among them around two dozen MQ-9 Reaper drones, four F-15E Strike Eagles, multiple KC-135 Stratotanker refueling aircraft, an A-10 Thunderbolt II attack plane, and an E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft, all lost due to either hostile or friendly fire and attacks on U.S. bases in the region. 

Damaged aircraft include an F-35 struck over Iran and multiple KC-135s, plus pricey radars and other infrastructure on various bases. The Pentagon has not provided a full accounting of the damage to U.S. facilities and equipment.

Thirteen Americans have been killed in action during the conflict.

The bulk of fighting took place between Feb. 28 and April 7, when the U.S. and Iran agreed to an uneasy ceasefire. Since then the U.S. has imposed a blockade on shipping to and from Iranian ports with a force that has grown to 17 U.S. warships and more than 100 planes, including Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps fighter jets, surveillance aircraft, and drones, according to U.S. Central Command. Roughly 10,000 U.S. military personnel are participating in the blockade.

Hegseth and Hurst did not provide a detailed breakdown of the costs of the conflict in their testimony before the HASC, such as whether the Pentagon is factoring in the cost of flying hours for the hundreds of aircraft based in the region, as well as costs associated with roughly two dozen B-1 and B-52 bombers that are still deployed to England for missions against Iran. Bombers have also flown missions against Iran from the continental United States. The U.S. military also has three aircraft carriers and an amphibious assault ship deployed to the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean.

When pressed by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) on whether the Pentagon’s $25 billion cost estimate included damage to bases and aircraft losses, Hegseth said “that number right now reflects the total cost that we’re seeing.” Hegseth also suggested a supplemental request would cover more than just the named air campaign against Iran.

“If and when a supplemental is submitted, the majority of it would not just be for Epic Fury,” Hegseth said. “It would be munitions for the entirety of what we want to get done. … On Iran, it would be less than $25 billion. But there’s a lot more we would ask for beyond just Iran.”