Top 10 Richest People in India (2026)

Key figures

• 229: Indian billionaires in 2026, a record high

• $1 trillion and above: combined wealth of India's billionaires

• $368 billion: held by the top 10 alone

• $99.7 billion: Mukesh Ambani, India's number one

The figures here come from the Forbes 2026 World's Billionaires list, with net worths fixed to the Forbes snapshot date of 1 March 2026. India produced a record 229 billionaires this year, up from 205, and their combined wealth crossed $1 trillion for the first time. The 10 richest Indians alone are worth roughly $368 billion, more than a third of that total.

The 10 richest people in India, ranked

Net worths below are in US dollars, as of the Forbes annual snapshot on 1 March 2026.

1. Mukesh Ambani $99.7B

Company: Reliance Industries | Sector: Diversified | Based in: Mumbai

Chairman of Reliance Industries, Ambani built a fortune that runs from oil and petrochemicals to the Jio telecom network and a vast retail arm. He is both India's richest person and the wealthiest person in Asia.

2. Gautam Adani $63.8B

Company: Adani Group | Sector: Infrastructure | Based in: Ahmedabad

Founder of the Adani Group, whose interests span ports, airports, energy, and infrastructure. Adani and Ambani have together pledged $210 billion toward AI infrastructure across India.

3. Savitri Jindal $39.1B

Company: O.P. Jindal Group | Sector: Steel | Based in: Hisar

Matriarch of the O.P. Jindal Group and India's richest woman, third overall. She leads a cohort of 20 Indian women billionaires on the 2026 list.

4. Lakshmi Mittal $31.0B

Company: ArcelorMittal | Sector: Steel | Based in: London and Dubai

The steel magnate behind ArcelorMittal was 2026's biggest gainer among Indian billionaires, adding $11.8 billion as the company's shares surged more than 80% over the year.

5. Shiv Nadar $30.9B

Company: HCL | Sector: Software services | Based in: Delhi

A pioneer of India's software services industry, Nadar founded HCL and is among the country's most generous philanthropists through the Shiv Nadar Foundation.

6. Cyrus Poonawalla $27.0B

Company: Serum Institute of India | Sector: Vaccines | Based in: Pune

Founder of the Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine maker by volume, which supplied doses at scale during the pandemic.

7. Dilip Shanghvi $25.6B

Company: Sun Pharmaceutical | Sector: Pharmaceuticals | Based in: Mumbai

Shanghvi built Sun Pharmaceutical from a small start into India's largest drugmaker, expanding through a series of well-timed acquisitions.

8. Kumar Birla $21.1B

Company: Aditya Birla Group | Sector: Commodities | Based in: Mumbai

Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, a conglomerate spanning cement, metals, fashion, and financial services across more than a dozen countries.

9. Radhakishan Damani $15.7B

Company: Avenue Supermarts (DMart) | Sector: Retail, investments | Based in: Mumbai

The low-profile investor turned retailer founded Avenue Supermarts, which runs the DMart chain, and is widely followed for his stock-market track record.

10. Uday Kotak $14.4B

Company: Kotak Mahindra Bank | Sector: Banking | Based in: Mumbai

Founder of Kotak Mahindra Bank and a new entrant to the top 10 this year, taking the place of DLF's Kushal Pal Singh, who slipped to twelfth.

India's top 10 richest at a glance

Net worth as of 1 March 2026 (Forbes).

Who is the richest man in India in 2026?

Mukesh Ambani is the richest man in India in 2026, worth $99.7 billion. He has held the top spot for years and remains the wealthiest person in all of Asia. His Reliance Industries gained about 12% in share value over the year, keeping him just short of the $100 billion mark he crossed two years earlier.

Who is the richest woman in India?

Savitri Jindal is the richest woman in India and the third-wealthiest Indian overall at $39.1 billion. As matriarch of the O.P. Jindal Group, she anchors a group of 20 women billionaires on the 2026 list, a sign of how the composition of Indian wealth is slowly widening.

The skills and sectors behind the wealth

Here is what a plain ranking misses. Look past the names and a pattern shows up in what actually builds a fortune in India today. Old money still sits at the very top through steel, commodities, and diversified conglomerates. The fastest movement, though, is coming from technology, finance, pharma, and a new force this year: education itself.

Two of 2026's newcomer billionaires, Alakh Pandey and Prateek Boob, reached the list through the edtech firm Physicswallah after its November IPO. India's youngest billionaire on the list, 31-year-old Aravind Srinivas, co-founded the AI search startup Perplexity. Payments and fintech put Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm back on the list after a three-year gap. The through-line is skills: software, AI, digital marketing, and product building are turning founders into billionaires faster than any traditional industry.

That is the useful takeaway for anyone studying this list rather than just reading it. The sectors compounding wealth fastest are the ones you can actually train for. CourseUnbox builds job-ready programs in exactly those areas, so the same forces creating new fortunes can start a career.

How Forbes counts a net worth

These rankings are not guesses. Forbes values each fortune using stock prices and exchange rates on a fixed date, which for the 2026 list was 1 March 2026. For listed companies that means share price times stake held; for private holdings it means comparing the business against similar public companies. Debt is subtracted.

Because the numbers are pinned to a single day, they move afterward. A billionaire's real-time worth on any given afternoon can sit above or below the figure published in the annual list, sometimes by billions, as markets and the rupee shift. When you see a different number quoted elsewhere, it is usually a real-time estimate rather than the annual snapshot used here.

About the author

CourseUnbox is a skill-education institute offering job-focused programs in Full Stack Development, AI Digital Marketing, Cybersecurity, and Content Creation. Reviewed by Jugal Chauhan, Founder of CourseUnbox, who has over 12 years in digital marketing and AI and has trained more than 40,000 learners. Published and last updated 21 August 2026.