2,402 F-35s on Order Against 1,041 in Service, GlobalMilitary.net Data Shows

Twenty countries hold a combined 2,402 F-35 Lightning II fighters on order as of 25 July 2026, against 1,041 airframes already delivered to 13 operators, according to GlobalMilitary.net inventory data. If every commitment is honored, the global F-35 fleet will more than triple.

The United States accounts for most of both totals. The US Air Force has 1,350 F-35As on order against 385 in service, the US Navy 193 F-35Cs against 56, and the US Marine Corps 164 F-35B/Cs against 170 — 1,707 aircraft outstanding and 611 delivered across the three services.

Outside the United States the programme is still in its early phase, with 695 aircraft on order against 430 delivered. The largest export order books are Japan (100), Canada (88), Italy (65 across the air force and navy), Finland (63), Switzerland (36), Germany (35) and Romania (32). Seven customers — Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Romania, Czechia, Greece and Singapore — have yet to take delivery of a single aircraft.

No other fighter programme comes close. The Rafale holds the second-largest order book at 239 aircraft across six countries, ahead of South Korea's KF-21 Boramae at 170 (none yet in service), the Eurofighter Typhoon at 150 and the JAS 39 Gripen at 124. The F-35 backlog is more than ten times the size of the Rafale's.

The contrast with the aircraft the F-35 is replacing is sharper still. The F-16 Fighting Falcon remains by a wide margin the most widely operated combat aircraft in the world, with 2,621 airframes flying in 27 countries — more than double the current F-35 fleet. But only 181 F-16s are still on order, spread across eight air forces. The F-35 is already in service with 13 nations and has orders from 20, and on current numbers will overtake the F-16 in absolute fleet size within the next decade.

The backlog also explains the industrial manoeuvring on display at the Farnborough International Airshow, which closed on 24 July. With Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth line committed for years, second-tier programmes are competing for the customers the F-35 cannot serve or that will not buy American. Saab and Embraer signed a framework agreement on 21 July for the potential assembly of 20 additional Gripens at Gavião Peixoto in Brazil, on top of the 15 E/F models already contracted for the Brazilian air force. Leonardo, on the same day, booked an order for 12 M-346F light fighters from Indonesia.

Two caveats apply to the figures. GlobalMilitary.net records "on order" as covering firm contracts and government-approved selections at different stages of maturity, so a portion of the backlog — most notably the 50 F-35As attributed to the United Arab Emirates, a sale that has been stalled since 2021 — is not equivalent to signed and funded production slots. And order books are not delivery schedules: at the annual output rates the Fort Worth line has sustained to date, clearing 2,402 airframes is a task measured in decades, not years.

GlobalMilitary.net maintains these figures for every national inventory it tracks across the air forces of the world ranked by fleet strength, updated as deliveries and new orders are recorded.