As the global cost of living continues to rise and economic uncertainty deepens, billionaires seem to become even richer. One locale where the income stream is building for women billionaires is in Germany.
Historically, women have faced significant barriers to accumulating wealth. However, the inequalities in education, employment, and access to capital have started to change over the past few decades, allowing more women to exploit the economy and join the ranks of the ultra-wealthy.
The company TradingPedia has recently combed through Forbes magazine’s Real-Time Billionaires List and discovered that now, there are more women billionaires than ever before.
As of May 2025, there are 390 women billionaires around the world, whose combined net worth exceeds $1,996 billion (€1,788 billion). Germany is home to 46 of them, more than any other nation in Europe. Their wealth is valued at around $167.3 billion (€148.8 billion), while Germany’s richest woman, with a net worth of $22.7 billion (€20.3 billion), is Susanne Klatten.
Overall, Germany has the largest number of women billionaires in Europe, 46 in total, with a net worth of $167.3 billion (€148.8 billion). There are also 124 men in Germany with a net worth of at least $1 billion, which means that women account for roughly 27% of all billionaires in the country.
Germany’s richest woman, Susanne Klatten, is now worth $22.7 billion (€20.3 billion). She owns a majority stake in pharmaceutical and chemicals manufacturer Altana, and also has holdings in Germany’s auto giant BMW. Following her father’s death, she inherited his 50.1% stake in Altana.
In terms of sources of money, the wealth of eight women is attributed to manufacturing, while 7 have accumulated their wealth in pharmaceuticals. Another four have become rich through their ownership in medical devices companies; four are also involved in companies developing and selling building materials.
The average age of Germany’s 46 women on the billionaire’s list is 59, with 87-year-old majority owner of Karl Storz Endoskope Sybill Storz ($2.7 Bln/€2.4 Bln) being the oldest one. Aged only 25, Katharina von Baumbach, one of the heirs to the Boehringer Ingelheim fortune, is Germany’s youngest woman billionaire and is now worth $5.4 billion (€4.8 Bln).
Putting the German data into context, currently, there are 758 billionaires across Europe, and 129 of them, or approximately 13.9%, are women. Their collective net worth reaches $598.4 billion or €532.6 billion. Globally, women account for 13.5% of all 2,887 billionaires.
European nations with a large number of women billionaires are Italy with 22 individuals on the list (combined net worth of $60.8 billion), followed by Sweden’s 10 women ($43.6 billion in total net worth), whose wealth exceeds $1 billion. The richest woman in Europe is Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, who, together with her family, owns roughly $79.8 billion.
The 71-year-old L’Oréal heiress is also the second-richest woman in the world after Walmart’s Alice Walton and the 20th richest person in the world. The U.S. remains the country with the largest number of women billionaires, 120 in total.
