How much does the most expensive aircraft carrier in the world cost?

The USS Gerald R. Ford entered service in 2017 as the first ship of a class designed to replace the Nimitz class. Its construction budget came to around $13.3 billion, the highest figure ever paid for a warship. On top of that come several billion more in research and development shared across the whole class, so the real cost of the first unit is even higher.

Much of the spending comes from technologies debuted on the ship itself: the EMALS electromagnetic catapults, which replace steam; the AAG arresting gear; a dual-band radar; and a nuclear plant with two new-generation reactors that produces almost three times the electrical power of a Nimitz-class carrier. Integrating all of that at once delayed testing and pushed the bill well above projections.

The ship displaces about 100,000 tons, is 337 m long, and can operate more than 75 aircraft, including F/A-18E/F, F-35C, E-2D, and helicopters. Its designers promise about a third more daily sorties than a Nimitz-class carrier with several hundred fewer crew members, which lowers operating costs over the 50-year service life planned for it. The following units, John F. Kennedy, Enterprise, and Doris Miller, benefit from the lessons learned on the first ship.

Outside the United States, no carrier comes close to that price: the British Queen Elizabeth-class ships cost around £3 billion each, and the French Charles de Gaulle, the only non-US nuclear-powered carrier, was considerably cheaper at the time.