Poland Signs a Sixth USD 4 Billion Foreign Military Financing Loan, Total Near USD 20 Billion, to Accelerate Apache, F-35 and Abrams
Warsaw, 9 September 2026
Key points
- Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Finance Minister Andrzej Domański and the state bank BGK signed with Thomas DiNanno, US Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, at the Polish Army Museum on 9 September: the sixth direct loan under the Foreign Military Financing programme, USD 4 billion, about PLN 15 billion, taking the total obtained close to USD 20 billion
- DiNanno had announced the tranche at the F-35 induction at Łask on 12 June; the ministry says it accelerates contracts already placed, naming the 96 AH-64E Apaches ordered in 2024, F-35, Abrams, advanced drones and the Barbara aerostat programme
- Marta Postuła of BGK said the terms are better than the last two agreements because part of the financing cost is subsidised by a grant awarded for the purpose by the US government; the terms themselves were not published
- Kosiniak-Kamysz said FMF "must obtain the approval of the US government and is granted only to the best allies" and that the EU's SAFE loans and FMF "do not compete with one another, they complement one another"
Poland signed its sixth Foreign Military Financing loan on 9 September, USD 4 billion on terms softened by a US grant, bringing the credit obtained under the programme close to USD 20 billion and directing it at contracts already signed for Apache, F-35 and Abrams.
The agreement announced at Łask in June became a signature in Warsaw three months later, with the US under secretary present again. FMF is a US programme of loans and loan guarantees for the purchase of American equipment; the ministry counts this as the sixth direct loan and puts the cumulative figure near USD 20 billion, and BGK, the state development bank, channels the funds. Kosiniak-Kamysz named F-35, Abrams, Apache, reconnaissance drones and the Barbara aerostats as what the money accelerates, and said the orders derive from the General Staff's analysis of current operations, above all the war in Ukraine, "not from anyone's whim". Domański said money for security should also work in the Polish economy, and the minister invited the United States to move production lines to Poland and to form joint ventures able to draw on European funds.
BGK's Postuła gave the one new financial fact: the loan is on more favourable terms than the fourth and fifth because a portion of the financing cost is subsidised by a US government grant. The terms were not disclosed. The minister framed the loan against the domestic argument over SAFE, the EU instrument under which Poland has EUR 43.7 billion in loans with a European-content rule, which President Nawrocki and the opposition say damages procurement from the United States and South Korea: the two, he said, complement rather than compete.
Acceleration has a testable meaning, and the Apaches carry it. The 96 AH-64E begin arriving in 2028 on the prime minister's office's August account; the only form acceleration can take is an earlier first delivery, and the ministry's list names no other date. The complement claim is also arithmetic rather than rhetoric: SAFE cannot buy F-35, Apache or Abrams under its content rule, and FMF can buy nothing else, so the two loans now fund the two halves of one procurement plan, USD 20 billion American and EUR 43.7 billion European. A US grant that lowers the cost of a loan for American equipment is a subsidy to the deliveries as much as to the borrower; it is the one term in the agreement Washington chose to publish. Signal No. 142 records the signing beside Kielce's second day.
Related · Poland's US financing
