We live and breathe city life here at Time Out – just take a look at our list of the world’s 50 best cities. We base our ranking on feedback from thousands of locals who, in our annual survey, rated their cities highly for culture, food and drink, nightlife and plenty of other criteria.
There are cities on our list where a lot of that stuff is, mercifully, quite affordable. – but, as it goes, some of the world’s greatest cities are also some of the richest.
Every year, wealth migration firm Henley & Partners produces a report that ranks the world’s wealthiest cities based on the number of resident millionaires and billionaires, and for yet another consecutive year, New York has claimed the top spot.
The Big Apple is home to around 384,500 millionaires, which is a 45 percent growth compared to 10 years ago, as well as 818 centi-millionaires and 66 billionaires. And we’re hardly shocked, but the US completely dominates this ranking, with four cities making the top 10.
The Bay Area once again claims second place, given it’s home to 342,400 millionaires, but this year Los Angeles has overtaken London to claim fifth place, with the California metropolis harbouring 220,600 millionaires. Chicago also overtook Beijing to claim tenth place, and is home to 127,100 – meaning a total of around 1.74 millionaires live in those four US cities alone.
Another shift compared to 2024’s ranking was a step down for Sydney into number nine, with Hong Kong overtaking it for number eight. You can check out the top 10 below, and read Henley & Partner’s report in more detail here.
These are the world’s wealthiest cities in 2025
- New York City
- The Bay Area
- Tokyo
- Singapore
- Los Angeles
- London
- Paris
- Hong Kong
- Sydney
- Chicago
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