World’s Billionaire Population Surges to New Record High: UBS

Wealth appreciation and inheritance were the key themes in the Swiss bank’s study.

A megayacht, built by Dutch yacht builder Royal Van Lent for former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, is piloted past a bridge in Woubrugge, Netherlands, on May 28, 2025. Josh Walet/ANP/AFP via Getty Images

The ultra-rich grew even wealthier this year and the world has more billionaires than ever, according to Swiss bank UBS.

Global billionaire wealth hit a record $15.8 trillion in 2025, up by 13 percent from 2024, UBS said in its 11th Billionaire Ambitions Report, published on Dec. 4. This is the second-largest annual increase, after 2021, “lifted by existing tech billionaires’ appreciating wealth and the number of new billionaires across a range of sectors,” the report reads.

UBS’s analysis includes cash, securities, corporate ownership interests, property, and other material assets.

“In a highly uncertain time for geopolitics and economics, entrepreneurs are innovating at scale across a range of sectors and markets,” UBS Global Wealth Management executive Benjamin Cavalli said. “They’re creating wealth as they do so.”

Inheritance was also a factor in the growth of the billionaires’ ranks.

In the 12 months through April, 91 people became billionaires through inheritance, receiving almost $298 billion, and the trend is likely to continue as the great wealth transfer intensifies.

The bank calculated that at least $5.9 trillion will be inherited by billionaire children over the next 15 years, “either directly or indirectly through spouses who inherit it first and then pass it on.”

A majority of respondents, 82 percent, said they hope that their children develop the skills and values necessary to succeed on their own without “relying solely on inherited wealth.”

The number of billionaires rose by 8.8 percent in 2025, to 2,919 from 2,682 a year earlier.

The United States has the most billionaires worldwide, with 924 individuals owning approximately $6.9 trillion. This is followed by mainland China, where 470 billionaires own about $1.8 trillion. India (188 billionaires), Germany (156), and the UK (91) rounded out the top five.

UBS said this could change, as billionaires have become more mobile amid geopolitical concerns, tax policy changes, and living standards.

Debating the Wealth Tax

For years, U.S. and European governments have debated the idea of a wealth tax, or an annual levy on net worth, to be imposed once assets minus debts exceed a threshold.

In 2024, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) introduced legislation—the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act—to implement a wealth tax on individuals with more than $50 million.

“All my bill is asking is that when you make it big, bigger than $50 million dollars, then on that next dollar, you pitch in 2 cents, so everyone else can have a chance,” Warren said in March 2024.

The bill stalled in both chambers. Overseas, politicians and voters have been reluctant to back similar schemes.

Billionaire businessman Elon Musk speaks during a town hall meeting at the KI Convention Center in Green Bay, Wis., on March 30, 2025. Scott Olson/Getty Images

Nearly 80 percent of Swiss voters recently turned down a proposed 50 percent tax on inherited fortunes greater than 50 million Swiss francs ($62 million).

The French Parliament rejected a proposed 2 percent tax on wealth greater than 100 million euros ($116 million) in October. Although the UK has not adopted a formal wealth tax, it has announced plans to impose higher taxes on wealthier residents.

Economists have presented divergent opinions on the concept in general. Proponents say it can improve governments’ deteriorating fiscal health and address income inequality. Critics have said that it would disincentivize wealth creation.

In June 2024, a study by French economist Gabriel Zucman estimated that a Group of 20 motion to slap a minimum 2 percent tax on the ultra-wealthy could generate $250 billion in additional revenue.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, speaking at a 2020 virtual event, argued that the United States needs a wealth tax.

“Where we are today in the 21st century, a basic middle-class life is not accessible to very large portions of America,” Stiglitz said. “I think a wealth tax is a good idea because we have so much inequality in wealth ... [that] even a moderate rate like 3 percent on billionaires and 2 percent on those over $50 million ... [would raise] an enormous amount of revenue.”

Economist Ludwig von Mises wrote in “Human Action” that a wealth tax would be a detriment to capital accumulation and a hindrance to wealth creation, since it would disincentivize the building of wealth.

“Capital levies, inheritance and estate taxes, and income taxes are similarly self-defeating if carried to extremes,” Von Mises wrote. “The power to tax is, as Chief Justice [John] Marshall pertinently observed, the power to destroy.”

Years later, economist Milton Friedman also said a wealth levy would punish saving and investment because it would incentivize the affluent “to dissipate wealth.”

“Where do you get the factories?” Friedman said during a university lecture in the 1970s. “Where do you get the machines? Where do you get the capital investment? Where do you get the incentive to improve technology?”

According to Friedman, a wealth tax would be on top of all the other taxes wealthier households already pay.

The Tax Foundation concluded in 2024 that wealth taxes would produce unintended consequences, including job destruction, reduced capital and innovation, slower economic activity, and higher administrative costs. This would result in little revenue being generated, it said.