UBS said on December 4, 2025 that 91 heirs inherited a combined $297.8 billion from billionaires in 2025, 36% more than in 2024, according to the bank's annual Billionaire Ambitions Report. The report, based on UBS's tracking of the world's roughly 3,000 billionaires plus a survey of 87 billionaire clients, put total billionaire wealth at an all-time high of $15.8 trillion. For families far below billionaire status, the numbers are a preview of planning questions, trust structures and basis rules that increasingly apply well down the wealth ladder.
What the report found
UBS counted 860 billionaires it classifies as multi-generational, meaning wealth passed down at least once, overseeing $4.7 trillion in combined assets, up from 805 such billionaires with $4.2 trillion a year earlier. Separately, 196 people became new self-made billionaires in 2025, adding $386.5 billion in fresh wealth. Looking further out, UBS estimates billionaires globally will transfer about $6.9 trillion by 2040, with at least $5.9 trillion of that going to children rather than to charity or other causes.
Why this matters well below the billionaire level
Very few After TAX readers are managing a ten-figure balance sheet, but the same mechanics UBS describes for billionaires, trusts holding operating businesses and concentrated stock, family offices coordinating multiple heirs, phased lifetime gifting, apply at $10 million, $30 million or $75 million of net worth. The federal estate and gift tax exemption is $15 million per person in 2026, so a married couple can shield $30 million from federal estate tax with basic portability and gifting planning. Families above that threshold face the same core decision billionaire families do: how much to gift during life, using the lower valuations and shifting of future appreciation that lifetime gifts allow, versus how much to hold until death, when heirs get a step-up in basis to the asset's value on the date of death.
A worked example
Consider a business owner with a company worth $20 million today that the owner expects to double in a decade. Gifting a minority stake now, while the exemption is high, can move future appreciation out of the taxable estate at today's lower valuation, often further reduced by a valuation discount for lack of marketability or control. Holding the stake until death instead means heirs avoid capital gains tax on the appreciation that occurred during the owner's lifetime, because their basis resets to fair market value at death. Which approach costs less after tax depends on the size of the estate relative to the exemption, the owner's life expectancy and expected liquidity needs, which is why the answer differs family by family rather than following a single formula. Families in this situation often find it worth discussing an irrevocable trust structure with a CPA or estate attorney, since a properly funded trust can hold gifted shares outside the taxable estate while the owner keeps some influence over how the business eventually passes to the next generation.
The generational and gender pattern
The report also counted 374 women billionaires against 2,545 men. Women's average wealth rose 8.4% to $5.2 billion, while men's grew 3.2%, the fourth straight year women's wealth has grown faster. For estate planners, that trend reinforces the importance of building flexibility into trusts and account titling so that wealth transferred to a spouse, and eventually to daughters as well as sons, is not locked into structures designed decades earlier around a single male wealth holder.
What to watch next
With $6.9 trillion in billionaire wealth expected to change hands by 2040, the size of the federal exemption will remain a political question. The One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act set the exemption at $15 million for 2026 with inflation indexing and no scheduled expiration, but no exemption level is safe from a future Congress. Families with significant business or concentrated-stock wealth may want to revisit lifetime gifting, trust funding and life insurance for estate liquidity while the current rules are in place.
Sources
After TAX is an independent publication. Articles are general information, not tax, legal or investment advice. Consult a licensed professional about your situation.
