3,428 billionaires. 989 of them are American.
Forbes' March 2026 list, read against the Federal Reserve's household balance sheet: how many billionaires there are, how they got there, what share of American wealth they hold, and how the American ones differ from everyone else's.
Net worths as of March 1, 2026. Every figure here is a Forbes estimate or an analytical classification of one — see about the data.
Forty years of Forbes lists: from 140 billionaires to 3,428.
Headline counts as Forbes published them for 1987–2009 (years where secondary sources disagree are marked “approx.” in the tooltip) and from the person-level lists for 2010–2026. The US series starts in 2010, the first year the person-level mirror is complete. The $1 billion bar is nominal, so part of the growth is inflation letting more people over it.
The numbers behind both charts
| Year | World | World net worth | US | US net worth |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 | 140 | $295B | — | — |
| 1988 | 191 | $338B | — | — |
| 1989* | 198 | $435B | — | — |
| 1990 | 269 | $542B | — | — |
| 1991* | 273 | $582B | — | — |
| 1992* | 288 | $602B | — | — |
| 1993* | 310 | $565B | — | — |
| 1994* | 349 | $762B | — | — |
| 1995 | 365 | $892B | — | — |
| 1996 | 447 | $1.10T | — | — |
| 1997 | 486 | $1.20T | — | — |
| 1998* | 454 | $1.10T | — | — |
| 1999* | 465 | $819B | — | — |
| 2000* | 470 | $898B | — | — |
| 2001 | 538 | $1.80T | — | — |
| 2002 | 497 | $1.50T | — | — |
| 2003 | 476 | $1.30T | — | — |
| 2004 | 587 | $1.90T | — | — |
| 2005 | 691 | $2.20T | — | — |
| 2006 | 793 | $2.60T | — | — |
| 2007 | 946 | $3.50T | — | — |
| 2008 | 1,125 | $4.40T | — | — |
| 2009 | 793 | $2.40T | — | — |
| 2010 | 1,011 | $3.57T | 403 | $1.35T |
| 2011 | 1,209 | $4.50T | 412 | $1.53T |
| 2012 | 1,226 | $4.57T | 424 | $1.64T |
| 2013 | 1,426 | $5.43T | 442 | $1.87T |
| 2014 | 1,645 | $6.45T | 492 | $2.32T |
| 2015 | 1,826 | $7.05T | 535 | $2.56T |
| 2016 | 1,810 | $6.48T | 541 | $2.40T |
| 2017 | 2,043 | $7.67T | 566 | $2.76T |
| 2018 | 2,208 | $9.06T | 586 | $3.10T |
| 2019 | 2,153 | $8.67T | 607 | $3.11T |
| 2020 | 2,095 | $8.04T | 615 | $2.95T |
| 2021 | 2,754 | $13.08T | 724 | $4.40T |
| 2022 | 2,668 | $12.71T | 735 | $4.70T |
| 2023 | 2,640 | $12.21T | 735 | $4.49T |
| 2024 | 2,781 | $14.21T | 813 | $5.70T |
| 2025 | 3,028 | $16.09T | 902 | $6.75T |
| 2026 | 3,428 | $20.05T | 989 | $8.42T |
* secondary sources disagree on this year's published count.
The line climbs from 140 names in 1987 to 3,428 in 2026, with visible retreats in the early 1990s, 2001–2003, 2009, and a shallow dip across 2022–23 — but the steepness is partly an artifact of the y-axis's unstated companion: the one-billion-dollar entry bar is not inflation-adjusted, and clearing it in 1987 took what would now be about $2.94 billion. Adjust for that, and the average fortune on the list is $5.85 billion in 2026 dollars today against $6.2 billion in 1987, so the list got longer rather than richer per head. Since 2010 the American count more than doubled, from 403 to 989, yet the U.S. share of the world total fell from about 40% to about 29% while its share of the wealth rose to 42%. Pre-2010 figures are Forbes' published headline counts, flagged in the final column, and all net worths are Forbes estimates.
Current dollars. In today's money the 1987 entry bar was about $2.9B, and the average fortune on the list was $6.2B then against $5.8B now — the list got longer, not richer per head.
Twelve countries hold three of every four billionaires.
- United States989 · $8.4T
- China540 · $2.2T
- India229 · $1.0T
- Germany212 · $1.0T
- Russia150 · $656B
- Italy90 · $484B
- Canada82 · $457B
- Hong Kong70 · $419B
- Brazil70 · $265B
- Taiwan66 · $245B
- Australia56 · $249B
- United Kingdom56 · $275B
By citizenship as Forbes records it. Per-capita, self-made shares, and the age mix by country are on the US vs. the world page.
What the rest of the site shows.
Of the 989 Americans, 635 founded or built the business behind their fortune and 267 inherited or received it. Hired executives and celebrities together are under 6%.
Among 876 Americans who first made a Forbes list since 2011, 14% did so before 40 and 58% before 60. About 22% of those arrivals inherited — an expected value, since Forbes' flag is imperfect.
989 people hold $8.4T against the Fed's $174.0T for all households — roughly twice the bottom half's $4.3T. Holding the count at 2010's 403 people, the share still rose to 4.1%.
Young American billionaires overwhelmingly built technology companies (64% of the 36 under 40). Young European billionaires overwhelmingly inherited. Even counting every unflagged American as an heir and every unflagged European as self-made, it is 78% against 35%.