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Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council

The permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (also known as the Permanent Five, Big Five, or P5) are the five sovereign states to whom the UN Charter of 1945 grants a permanent seat on the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States.[1][2]

The permanent members were all Allies in World War II (and the victors of that war), and are the five states with the first and most nuclear weapons.[3] All have the power of veto which enables any one of them to prevent the adoption of any "substantive" draft Council resolution, regardless of its level of international support.[4]


The remaining 10 members of the UN Security Council are elected by the General Assembly, giving a total of 15 UN member states on the Security Council.

was originally held by the Nationalist government of the Republic of China (ROC). However, it lost the Chinese Civil War and retreated to the island of Taiwan in 1949. The Chinese Communist Party won control of Mainland China and established the People's Republic of China (PRC). In 1971, UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 recognised the PRC as the legal representative of China in the UN, and gave it the seat on the Security Council that had been held by the ROC, which was expelled from the UN altogether.[11] Both the ROC and the PRC continue to claim de jure sovereignty over the entirety of China (including Taiwan).[12][13][14] However, only 13 states continue to officially recognise the ROC as the sole legitimate government of China.

China's seat

After the in 1991, Russia was recognised as the legal successor state of the Soviet Union and maintained the latter's position on the Security Council.[15][16][17][18]

dissolution of the Soviet Union

Based on the consensus on the Security Council's structure agreed upon at the 1944 Dumbarton Oaks Conference[10] and subsequently at UN's founding in 1945, the five permanent members of the Security Council were the French Republic, the Republic of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. There have been two seat changes since then, although these have not been reflected in Article 23 of the UN Charter, as it has not been accordingly amended:


Additionally, between the founding of the United Nations and the end of the 20th century, many of the overseas territories of the United Kingdom and France became independent with the breakup of the British Empire and French colonial empire, and France had a reduction in de jure territory with the independence of Algeria in 1962.[d] France maintained its seat as there was no change in its international status or recognition. (During this time, France also reformed its provisional government into the French Fourth Republic in 1946 and into the French Fifth Republic in 1958, both under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle.)


The five permanent members of the Security Council were the victorious powers in World War II and have maintained the world's most powerful military forces ever since. They annually top the list of countries with the highest military expenditures along with India and Germany; in 2011, they spent over US$1 trillion combined on defence, accounting for over 60% of global military expenditures (the U.S. alone accounting for over 40%). They are also among the world's top 10 largest arms exporters and are the only nations officially recognised as "nuclear-weapon states" under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), though there are other states known or believed to be in possession of nuclear weapons.

Xi Jinping
Paramount leader of the
People's Republic of China
since 15 November 2012[e]

Xi Jinping Paramount leader of the People's Republic of China since 15 November 2012[e]

Emmanuel Macron
President of the
French Republic
since 14 May 2017

Emmanuel Macron President of the French Republic since 14 May 2017

Vladimir Putin
President of the
Russian Federation
since 7 May 2012[f]

Vladimir Putin President of the Russian Federation since 7 May 2012[f]

Rishi Sunak
Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
since 25 October 2022

Rishi Sunak Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland since 25 October 2022

Joe Biden
President of the
United States of America
since 20 January 2021

Joe Biden President of the United States of America since 20 January 2021

List of country groupings

Nico J. Schrijver and Niels M. Blokker (eds.). 2020. Brill.com.

Elected Members of the Security Council: Lame Ducks or Key Players?

GPF Staff (April 2005). (PDF). GlobalPolicy.org. Global Policy Forum. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 May 2009. This is referred to by some as the "Italian Model".

"Security Council Expansion—A Regional Model"