ICIJ's Private Military Company Database

Search here to find information about private military companies (PMCs) operating worldwide. You can search by company or individual name, or by country or region.

We have defined a PMC as a company that provides, for a profit, services that were previously carried out by a national military force, including military training, intelligence, logistics and offensive combat, as well as security in conflict zones.

This database contains information compiled through Freedom of Information requests to the U.S. government, other primary sources, telephone and e-mail inquiries and research of online and printed material. ICIJ does not claim to have identified all the companies providing private military services worldwide, or to have listed all the contracts held by the PMCs included in this database.

Information on such companies can be difficult to obtain. There is a paucity of public information about the nature of services that PMCs offer. The U.S. government often classifies contractual details as proprietary commercial information, exempting them from release under the Freedom of Information Act. Contracts between private companies and foreign governments, or contracts between two private companies, are subject to even less disclosure. Much of the information for this database, therefore, has come through rigorous searches of archived secondary sources.

The information in this database is current through at least August 2002.