AMRAAM: Raytheon Gets an Undefinitized USD 20.7 Billion Multi-Year Ceiling to June 2033 — Eleven European States Among Sixteen FMS Customers
Washington, 28 September 2026
Key points
- The Pentagon's contract list of 28 September carries a not-to-exceed USD 20,699,334,581 fixed-price-incentive and firm-fixed-price undefinitized multi-year contract to Raytheon, Tucson, for AMRAAM all-up rounds, guidance sections, direct charge and FMS offsets; work at Tucson, completion by 30 June 2033. The award date was 25 September; the contracting office is the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Robins Air Force Base
- Sixteen foreign military sales customers are named, eleven European: Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The others are Australia, Canada, Japan, Kuwait and Taiwan. USD 154.3 million of FMS money and USD 85,715 of Air Force funds were obligated at award
- Raytheon describes it as a five-year multi-year contract with two option years under the Department of War's "Arsenal of Freedom", following the February 2026 framework agreement that committed the company to at least 1,900 AMRAAM a year. Neither party has disclosed quantities
- The previous record AMRAAM award was USD 3.5 billion in July 2025. Congress has not yet appropriated the full amount
Twenty billion dollars is the ceiling on a contract whose price, quantity and annual rate have not been agreed, and the money actually obligated on the day was almost all foreign.
An undefinitized contract action lets the contractor start work before the terms are negotiated; the ceiling bounds what the government may end up paying, not what it has agreed to pay. The multi-year form, five base years plus two options, lets Raytheon commit to its supplier base at the 1,900-a-year rate it promised in February, and the FMS offsets line is where the European lots enter: each a separate national case, obligated against this vehicle as the letters of offer are signed. The USD 154.3 million obligated at award is that mechanism starting, not the US Air Force buying missiles.
For the eleven European customers the contract is the production slot behind their national orders. Germany's are the nearest to hand: three days before the award, on 23 September, the Bundestag's budget committee cleared two further lots of AIM-120 for the F-35A and the Eurofighter as 25-million submissions, with no value published. Poland, Finland and the Netherlands are F-35 buyers whose AMRAAM demand rises with the airframe deliveries; Sweden and Norway are the Nordic Gripen and F-35 cases in the same queue. Michael Duffey, the acquisition under secretary, said the award "strengthens our ability to equip the Joint Force and our allies".
A ceiling this size on an undefinitized action is a capacity reservation for the allies as much as an order for the US services, and its European meaning is a queue position, not a delivery date. The two numbers that would turn it into a schedule are the definitized unit price and the year in which the 1,900-a-year rate is reached; Raytheon nearly doubled AMRAAM output in 2025 and has not said where the line now stands. Until then, the European lots are obligations against a price that does not exist. Signal No. 156 carried the award; No. 153 has the German lots it now sits behind.
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