The global coterie of billionaires grows bigger, richer and more powerful each year, with the supremely-rich amassing wealth at unprecedented levels. Estimated at 1% of the global UHNW population, the billionaire club holds almost 25% of this group’s total wealth.
But how many billionaires are there in the world, what’s behind the surge in super wealth, what’s making them so wealthy and where do the mega-rich live or want to live?
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At a glance
- A new UBS report places the number of global billionaires in 2025 at a record-breaking 3,028
- The U.S. has a record 902 billionaires, followed by China (516, including Hong Kong) and India (205)
- In 2025, 196 self-made billionaires – the second highest number of self-made individuals in the history of the report became billionaires, with total wealth of USD $386.5 billion spread across diverse sectors
- In 2025, 91 heirs inherited a record $297.8 billion, up 36% from 2024
The UAE, the US, Italy, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia are top destinations for billionaires on the move - The billionaire class is now being powered by two engines – entrepreneurial wealth creation and multi‑generational inheritance
- The finance and tech sectors are propelling the surge in global billionaires
- New York and The Bay Area in the U.S are the most populous billionaire urban centres
How many billionaires are there in the world?
The world has more billionaires than ever thanks to soaring tech valuations and stock-market gains according to a freshly launched billionaire report by Swiss banking giant UBS.
The finance giant places the number of global billionaires at 2,900 now controlling a staggering $15.8 trillion, up 8.8% from about 2,700 billionaires with a cumulative wealth of nearly $14 trillion a year earlier.
In 2025, 196 self-made billionaires, the second highest number of self-made individuals in the history of the report, became billionaires, with a total wealth of USD $386.5 billion spread across diverse sectors.
Outside of the purple patch year in 2021, which saw the largest post-pandemic surge in self-made billionaires, 2025 proved to be a banner year for wealth creation with U.S billionaires leading the way.
Across the entire Americas, 92 self-made new billionaires represented a total wealth of USD $179.9 billion with 87 domiciled in the U.S.
“A fresh generation of billionaires is steadily emerging,” UBS said. “In a highly uncertain time for geopolitics and economics, entrepreneurs are innovating at scale across a range of sectors and markets.”
Business media outlet Forbes places the number of global billionaires in 2025 at a record-breaking 3,028 – the first time the list has surpassed 3,000 people – made up of a monied web of entrepreneurs, investors and heirs.
Their combined wealth is valued at a staggering $16.1 trillion – up $2 trillion from 2024, surpassing the GDP of most nations aside from the U.S and China.
According to the business magazine, the U.S. has a record 902 billionaires, followed by China (516, including Hong Kong) and India (205).
The media outlet’s Richest People in the World index tracks the world’s billionaires in real time via their proprietary global billionaires ranking, headlined (at time of writing), by the world’s richest tech bosses: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.
The influential Bloomberg Billionaire Index, a daily ranking of the world’s richest people, places Elon Musk as the world’s richest billionaire, followed by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Google co-founder Larry Page.
Analysis by wealth intelligence firm Altrata similarly showed growth in the number of billionaires around the world with their 2025 Billionaire Census reporting a 10.3% surge in the total net worth of the billionaire class to a record USD $13.4 trillion – marking a third consecutive year of rising billionaire wealth.
The report estimated the 2025 global billionaire population at 3,508 individuals with a third residing in the U.S. China came in second with 321 billionaires holding about 10% of the world’s wealth.
What’s making the world’s super-rich…so rich?
The billionaire class is now being minted by two engines – entrepreneurial spirit and multi‑generational inheritance.
Despite finance and tech doing most of the heavy lifting in terms of wealth creation, the hype around artificial intelligence (AI) and startups with stratospheric valuations was downplayed by UBS with mega wealth generated across a broad spectrum of traditional sectors.
Mainly being seeded across the United States and China,
these include diverse sectors such as marketing software, genetics, restaurants, infrastructure and liquefied natural gas (LNG).
“Unlike the post-pandemic asset-driven surge of 2021, this growth (in number of billionaires] was driven by bold business creation and entrepreneurial success.
“From marketing software and genetics to liquefied natural gas and infrastructure, these innovators are reshaping demand at scale, with billionaires in the US and Asia-Pacific leading the charge,” UBS said.
Newly-minted billionaires included Ben Lamm, co-founder of genetics and bioscience company Colossal, Michael Dorrell, co-founder and CEO of Stonepeak, an infrastructure investment firm, and Bob Pender and Mike Sabel, who co-founded Venture Global, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) liquefaction and export facility in Cameron Parish, Louisiana.
It was also a banner year for Asia-Pacific’s entrepreneurs – 61 became billionaires, with a total valuation of a staggering USD $124.4 billion.
China’s Zhang brothers, founders of the fast-food restaurant chain Mixue Ice Cream & Tea, became billionaires after a March 2025 initial public offering (IPO) on the Hong Kong SAR Stock Exchange.
A food empire started on money borrowed from the brothers’ grandmother, Mixue Ice Cream & Tea is now the world’s largest fast-food chain – eclipsing McDonald’s for context – having exploded in China and now counting 6,000 sites across Asia, Australia, the Middle East, and South America.
Justin Sun, the crypto entrepreneur behind the TRON blockchain, is also one of the 2025 billionaire winners with an estimated net worth of US$12.5 billion.
The great wealth inheritance drive
Running alongside the surge in self-made billionaires is a historic growth in inherited wealth.
In 2025, 91 heirs inherited a record USD $297.8 billion, up 36% from 2024, the largest amount of inherited billionaire wealth in the history of the report, which dates back to 2015, UBS said.
UBS executive Benjamin Cavalli described these heirs as “proof of a multi‑year wealth transfer that’s intensifying.”
Western Europe led the way with 48 individuals inheriting USD $149.5 billion. That includes 15 members of two “German pharmaceutical families,” with the youngest just 19 years old and the oldest at 94.
Meanwhile, 18 heirs in North America were handed down $86.5 billion, and 11 in Southeast Asia.
The report forecasts that billionaires will likely transfer about USD $6.9 trillion by 2040, with at least USD $5.9 trillion of that being passed to children, either directly or indirectly.
UBS found that gender dynamics are also shifting, with more women becoming billionaires via inheritance than through any other route in 2025.
Billionaires on the move - where do the world’s billionaires want to live?
The billionaire population is far from static. The UBS report highlights that billionaires continue to be on the move, with 36% saying they have relocated at least once, and 9% indicating that they are considering doing so in the near future.
A better quality of life (36%), major geopolitical concerns (36%) and being able to organise tax affairs more efficiently (35%) were the top reasons cited for relocating.
This global movement adds complexity as families manage legal, cultural and financial challenges across borders.
Since Covid and a series of geopolitical upheavals, key motivators behind UHNW cross-border migration are favourable tax strategies, safety, robust rule of law and high quality of life.
Migration paths are also being shaped by the crosswinds of geopolitical and geoeconomic dynamics as well as predatory country-specific wealth taxation and weak fiscal policies.
However, being geographically mobile does not come without complexities as entrepreneurs and their families tend to still be closely connected to their business operations.
Relocations will need to make geographical sense with connectivity a key sway factor for the super rich. Families will also face legal, cultural and financial challenges across borders.
A handful of countries have a well-oiled path for ultra-high-net-worth relocation with a number of residence and citizenship by investment programs working to attract wealthy individuals or families.
As a result, billionaires and their families are increasingly global, with family members often spread around the world, according to residency firm Henley & Partners.
Billionaire losses - the world’s biggest losers
Asian billionaires’ top worry for the next year is tariffs while a majority of U.S. billionaires were most concerned about inflation or geopolitics, according to the UBS study.
Wealth intelligence firm New World Wealth reported that China lost 10% of its billionaire population, mostly due to weak consumer spending, outward wealth migration, and a real estate bust.
The UK has emerged as a cautionary tale in this new era of wealth migration, facing the largest single-year exodus of millionaires ever recorded.
In 2025, the country is projected to see a net loss of 16,500 high-net-worth individuals, collectively holding an estimated GBP 66 billion in liquid investable assets
With the cross-border wealth landscape shifting dramatically, where are the world’s billionaires moving to?
In 2025, the UAE, the US, Italy, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia attracted the highest number of high-net-worth individuals through a lucrative combination of climate, tax-friendly policies, golden visas, discreet banking systems, business opportunities and high quality of life.
In 2025, 142,000 of the world’s richest were on the move, with high-net-worth migration accelerating into 2026 as a record 165,000 are expected to relocate.
The world’s wealthiest cities
Residency-by-investment firm Henley & Partners has also drilled the numbers behind the world’s wealthiest cities, identifying the global wealth hubs where billionaires want to live in 2025 and beyond.
Unsurprisingly, top-tier U.S cities have the highest populations of those in the billionaire club – around 900 – with eight metropolitan areas counted among the fastest-growing wealth centers.
The US’s urban centres are continuing their super-wealth supremacy via a frothy mix of exceptional infrastructure, excellent connectivity, geographic locations, and juicy government policies that embrace international capital and talent coupled with exceptional standards of living.
A further boon for America’s wealth capitals, UBS reports that 63% of the world’s billionaires list North America as their top opportunity for investment returns over the next 12 months.
In Silicon Valley, the highest concentration of mega wealth has never been so pronounced, with the wider San Francisco region racking up 82 billionaires – 14 more than the previous year, according to Henley & Partners.
On the list of billionaires residing in the Bay Area – a fertile environment supporting both industry leaders and fresh innovators – are the world’s richest tech entrepreneurs including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Larry Page.
New York is America’s second most populous city, counting 66 billionaires with those in the mega wealth club including media mogul Michael Bloomberg, philanthropist and heiress Julia Koch and fashion businessman Ralph Lauren.
Los Angeles is America’s third most billionaire-heavy city with a 45 headcount.
Asian wealth hub Hong Kong ranks fourth with 40 resident billionaires. London follows closely, racking up 33 billionaires – losing two in the 12 months prior.
Henley and Partners’ number crunching reveals the winners in the race to create mega wealth, with Shenzen, China crowned as the world’s fastest growing wealth hub in 2025 counting 22 billionaires.
India’s answer to Silicon Valley Bengaluru ranked third, with 8 billionaires and booming tech centre Hangzhou, also in China, minting 12 billionaires and 102 centi-millionaires.
The world’s top ten richest individuals - the Silicon Valley kingpins
Money is power and with a wealth-friendly Trump administration in the US creating fertile ground for the super-rich to multiply through tax breaks and favourable relocation policies, it’s no wonder America is leading the charge.
One of the world’s leading wealth relocation hubs, the country saw a remarkable 98% increase in its millionaire population in the decade from 2014, according to Henley & Partners’ data with the U.S now home to over 900 billionaires worth a staggering USD $6.9 trillion.
According to the ’billionaire bible’, the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, as of December 2025, nine out of ten of the world’s ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) are U.S nationals and Silicon Valley’s biggest players, having amassed incredible fortunes through technology.
French luxury goods mogul Bernard Arnault is the only non-US billionaire in the top ten of the world’s richest.
Play to win: The world’s richest billionaires
- Elon Musk $462B – Technology
- Larry Page $274B +$105B – United States Technology
- Larry Ellison $266B – United States Technology
- Sergey Brin $254B – United States Technology
- Jeff Bezos $254B – United States Technology
- Mark Zuckerberg $226B – United States Technology
- Bernard Arnault $201B – France Consumer
- Steve Ballmer $166B -$3.92B +$19.7BUnited States Technology
- Jensen Huang $156B – United States Technology
- Warren Buffett $152B -United States Diversified.
