Wealthiest women in the world: the top 20, ranked by net worth

The 20 wealthiest women in the world are worth about $848 billion together, according to Forbes’ real-time list on 11 November 2026, and Alice Walton leads with $134.5 billion. The cut-off for the top 20 is $18.5 billion. For comparison, Elon Musk alone is worth $902.2 billion on Forbes’ list on 12 November, more than all twenty women combined. 12

The 20 wealthiest women in the world

Rank	Name	Net worth	Country	Source of wealth
1	Alice Walton	$134.5 billion	United States	Walmart
2	Françoise Bettencourt Meyers and family	$104.9 billion	France	L’Oréal
3	Julia Koch and family	$84.6 billion	United States	Koch, Inc.
4	Jacqueline Mars	$50.3 billion	United States	Mars, Inc.
5	Rafaela Aponte-Diamant	$43.9 billion	Switzerland	Shipping (MSC), self-made
6	Iris Fontbona and family	$43.3 billion	Chile	Mining (Antofagasta)
7	Abigail Johnson	$41.6 billion	United States	Fidelity Investments
8	Savitri Jindal and family	$41.2 billion	India	Steel (Jindal Group)
9	Marilyn Simons and family	$36.6 billion	United States	Renaissance Technologies
10	Melinda French Gates	$34.6 billion	United States	Microsoft
11	Miriam Adelson and family	$31.9 billion	United States	Las Vegas Sands
12	Christy Walton	$24.6 billion	United States	Walmart
13	Gina Rinehart	$24.5 billion	Australia	Hancock Prospecting
14	Susanne Klatten	$24.0 billion	Germany	BMW, pharmaceuticals
15	Vicky Safra and family	$23.7 billion	Greece	Banking
16	Diane Hendricks	$23.6 billion	United States	ABC Supply, self-made
17	Zheng Shuliang and family	$23.3 billion	China	Aluminium (Shandong Hongqiao)
18	Nancy Walton Laurie	$19.9 billion	United States	Walmart
19	Renata Kellnerova and family	$19.0 billion	Czech Republic	PPF Group
20	Zhong Huijuan	$18.5 billion	China	Hansoh Pharmaceutical, self-made

Figures are Forbes’ real-time estimates on 11 November 2026, as compiled by Imagine If. Just outside the top 20 are Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken ($18.0 billion), Laurene Powell Jobs ($16.2 billion), Ann Walton Kroenke ($14.8 billion) and Anthropic co-founder Daniela Amodei ($14.2 billion). 1

Where do the wealthiest women come from?

Ten of the twenty are American. China has two, and France, Switzerland, Chile, India, Australia, Germany, Greece and the Czech Republic have one each. The United States dominates because of family fortunes such as Walmart, Koch and Mars, and a large pool of self-made founders 1.

How many of the top 20 are self-made?

Three: Rafaela Aponte-Diamant, Diane Hendricks and Zhong Huijuan. The other seventeen inherited their wealth or share it with family. The Walton family alone accounts for three places, Alice Walton, Christy Walton and Nancy Walton Laurie, with a combined $179 billion. The richest of them is covered in our report on the richest woman in the world. 1

Why women hold a small share of top fortunes

The top 20 women are worth roughly $848 billion, which compares with $2.85 trillion for the ten richest people overall, all of them men, on Forbes’ list on 12 November. Forbes counted 481 women among 3,428 billionaires on its 2026 list, about 14%, up from 406 a year earlier, and self-made women hold only 2.4% of United States self-made billionaire wealth, according to Forbes data compiled by Imagine If. The full picture is in our guide to women billionaires. 123

The wealthiest woman in India

Savitri Jindal is the only Indian woman in the top 20, at $41.2 billion, or about ₹3.9 lakh crore at ₹94 to the dollar. Her fortune comes from the Jindal Group’s steel and power businesses, and she is the 50th richest person in the world on Forbes’ real-time list. See the Savitri Jindal profile. 2

What happens next

Rankings shift daily with share prices, and Forbes revises the list as private valuations change. We refresh this page when the order of the top ten changes. For the male equivalent, see the wealthiest men in the world, and for the overall order, the top 50 richest people in the world.

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