The world’s richest cities have been ranked – here’s where Sydney landed on the elite list in 2025

Let’s face it: it’s a sad reality that most Sydneysiders are hardly swimming in cash right now. But while we’re trying to navigate this cost-of-living crisis, it seems our millionaire population is somehow growing. In the midst of this wallet-wringing chaos, the world’s wealthiest cities have been announced for 2025 – and Sydney came in at number nine. Every year, wealth migration firm Henley and Partners releases its World’s Wealthiest Cities Report, which ranks the top 50 wealthiest cities based on the number of millionaires (and billionaires) who live there. Four Australian capital cities made the rich list in 2025, with Sydney and Melbourne both ranking in the top 20. 

Sydney dropped one spot in the rankings – from the eighth wealthiest city in the world in 2024 to ninth this year. Over the past decade, the Emerald City’s millionaire population has grown a massive 28 per cent, now being home to 152,900 millionaires, 224 centi-millionaires and 22 billionaires – and that's all in USD, suggesting an even higher figure in Aussie dollars. The same report also revealed Sydney as the seventh most expensive city to live in globally, following Monaco, NYC, Hong Kong, London, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat and Paris.

Topping the rich list for yet another year was New York City. The Big Apple a total of 384,500 millionaires, 818 centi-millionaires and  66 billionaires. The runner-up on the world's wealthiest cities list was the US's Bay Area (including San Francisco and Silicon Valley), with Tokyo, Singapore and London rounding out the top five. 

Our friends down in Melbourne came in at 16th place, dropping one place from last year, with 94,000 millionaires, 108 centi-millionaires and 12 billionaires. 

Here are the top 20 wealthiest cities in the world for 2025:

1. New York
2. The Bay Area
3. Tokyo
4. Singapore
5. Los Angeles
6. London
7. Paris
8. Hong Kong
9. Sydney
10. Chicago
11. Milan
12. Beijing
13. Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe
14. Shanghai
15. Toronto
16. Melbourne
17. Houston
18. Dubai
19. Frankfurt
20. Zurich

You can read about Henley and Partners’ report in more detail here. And if you're not part of Sydney's rich list, you might like to check our readers’ top tips for living on a budget in the Harbour City over here.

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