May 19, 2025. Michael Fisher.
The concept of a billionaire is relatively modern, yet individuals with extraordinary wealth have long influenced the global economy, politics, and philanthropy. According to Forbes magazine’s real-time list of the world’s wealthiest people for 2025, there are more women billionaires than ever before. Still, women are barely 13.5 percent of the entire list. So, is the progress in closing the gender wealth gap significant, or do the systemic barriers to wealth-building persist for women in 2025?
The team at TradingPedia set out to unmask the global women billionaire elite and break down the statistics behind their fortunes. By compiling and analysing real-time data from Forbes, we have focused on the wealth gender gap and the countries that give women the best opportunities for education, entrepreneurship, and doing business, as well as those that give women access to venture capital and wealth-building networks.
When we looked at the Forbes’ Real- Time Billionaires List on April 15 of this year, we discovered 390 women with a wealth of USD one billion or more worldwide. Roughly 31 percent, or 120, of them are based in the United States, while the most common source of their wealth is real estate.
Global Overview
Following a few weeks of bearish markets and an April shock after U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff announcement, the number of billionaires has shrunk a bit. In March, Forbes counted 3,028 billionaires based on their publicly available holdings in companies, real estate, and other assets. As of April 15, 2025, the number of these wealthy individuals dropped to 2,889, an insignificant percentage of the global population at first glance.
These people, however, are believed to own over one-third of the global wealth. Known as ‘status quo members’, billionaires exert control over all facets of daily life – they own the companies and mega corporations, they own the banks and the media; through their ownership, they control the economy, and can influence governments.
As of April 2025, the total wealth owned by billionaires reaches roughly USD 15.28 trillion, with USD 2.26 trillion of this massive amount owned by the top 15 individuals who have USD 100 billion or more (the so-called centibillionaires). These 15 ultra-wealthy men (after Alice Walton’s net worth dropped below USD 100 billion, this elite club has only men) are now worth more than the bottom 1,400 billionaires combined.
While the United States is home to 30 percent of all billionaires around the world, those based in the U.S. own 42.5 percent of the total billionaire wealth. China comes second with individuals there owning 9.8 percent of all wealth, followed by India (6.1 percent) and Germany (4.9 percent).
At the very top of the chart, making her the wealthiest current female billionaire in the world, is Alice Walton, a philanthropist and only daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton. Her net worth is estimated at USD 99.3 billion.
A majority of billionaires hail from, unsurprisingly, the most economically developed areas of the world, namely North America, Europe, and Eastern Asia. The highest number of billionaires in 2025 was found in Asia, reaching over 1,015 individuals. It is closely followed by North America with 964 and Europe with 758 billionaires, whereas the gap down to the other regions of the world is significant.
When it comes to gender, 134 of North American billionaires are female, 129 billionaire women hail from Europe, and 105 women have established themselves as billionaires in Asia. Interestingly enough, there are no female billionaires in Africa, while the rest of the world seems to have a higher gender balance when it comes to the number of male and female billionaires, even compared to North America and Europe.
Most notably, there are only two exceptionally wealthy men in the Caribbean compared to one woman; four billionaire men per a wealthy woman in Australia and Oceania; and six men for every woman in South America. The ratio of male to female billionaires in North America is higher at 8 to 1; it is 6 to 1 in Europe, and in Asia, it is 9 to 1.
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