The 10 richest people in Japan in 2026

For years, Uniqlo founder Tadashi Yanai looked like a fixture at the top of Japan’s wealth list. In 2026 that assumption slipped: SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son took the crown back—not with a quiet retail climb, but with a sharp jump tied to tech and AI-linked bets.

The figures below follow Forbes’ Japan’s 50 Richest 2026 (mid-year survey). Fortunes move with share prices and the yen, yet the ranks still show which industries concentrate capital in Japan—and how far even the country’s richest trail the global top.

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The 10 richest people in Japan in 2026

According to Forbes, the combined wealth of Japan’s 50 richest individuals and families reached about US$294 billion—roughly 29% higher than on the previous list. The single largest gain is linked to SoftBank’s results and Masayoshi Son’s AI-related investments.

Rank	Name	Net worth	Industry / source
1	Masayoshi Son	about US$80 billion	Finance & investments (SoftBank)
2	Tadashi Yanai & family	about US$65 billion	Fashion & retail (Fast Retailing / Uniqlo)
3	Takemitsu Takizaki	about US$23.6 billion	Manufacturing (Keyence)
4	Nobutada Saji & family	about US$9.3 billion	Food & beverage (Suntory)
5	Sekiya family	about US$9.1 billion	Technology (Disco, chip equipment)
6	Yasumitsu Shigeta	about US$6 billion	Telecommunications (Hikari Tsushin)
7	Takao Yasuda	about US$4.7 billion	Fashion & retail (Don Quijote)
8	Hideyuki Busujima & family	about US$4.6 billion	Gambling & casinos (Sankyo and related)
9	Toichi Takenaka & family	about US$4 billion	Construction & engineering (Takenaka)
10	Akira Mori & family	about US$3.95 billion	Real estate (Mori Trust)

What stands out at the top

• Masayoshi Son reclaims first place after several years. Forbes ties the surge mainly to SoftBank’s profit and large AI bets—including stakes linked to OpenAI.
• Tadashi Yanai slips to second even as Uniqlo’s parent company keeps growing. Fast Retailing remains the flagship of Japan’s fashion export story.
• Takemitsu Takizaki (Keyence) keeps industrial automation on the podium: sensors and factory tech, not only consumer brands.
• Below them, drinks (Suntory), semiconductor equipment (Disco / Sekiya), discount retail (Don Quijote), construction and real estate mix in—a cross-section of the Japanese economy, not “Big Tech” alone.

For the longer historical arc, see the piece on the Japanese economic miracle. For the money and policy backdrop, the guide to interest rates and the Japanese economy is a useful companion.

The 10 richest people in the world (2026 context)

Japan’s leaders sit in the tens of billions; the global leaders sit in the hundreds. Forbes lists and real-time rankings shift almost daily with Tesla, Alphabet, Amazon and Nvidia. Through summer 2026, the worldwide top 10 is typically led by technology founders:

Rank	Name	Typical source of wealth	Country
1	Elon Musk	Tesla, SpaceX	United States
2	Larry Page	Google / Alphabet	United States
3	Jeff Bezos	Amazon	United States
4	Sergey Brin	Google / Alphabet	United States
5	Michael Dell	Dell Technologies	United States
6	Mark Zuckerberg	Meta	United States
7	Jensen Huang	Nvidia	United States
8	Larry Ellison	Oracle	United States
9	Bernard Arnault & family	LVMH (luxury)	France
10	Warren Buffett	Berkshire Hathaway	United States

Even at roughly US$65–80 billion, Yanai and Son remain far behind the global leaders. Japanese billionaires often dominate national industries and Asian supply chains—they less often sit on the platform monopolies that shape the world list.

List of the 50 richest people in Japan in 2026

The extended Forbes list (June 2026) shows, beyond Uniqlo and SoftBank, many family fortunes from retail, games, construction and industry. The minimum net worth to make the list was reported in the billion-dollar range; exact day-to-day quotes will differ.

Rank	Name	Net worth	Industry
1	Masayoshi Son	about US$80 billion	Finance & investments
2	Tadashi Yanai & family	about US$65 billion	Fashion & retail
3	Takemitsu Takizaki	about US$23.6 billion	Manufacturing
4	Nobutada Saji & family	about US$9.3 billion	Food & beverage
5	Sekiya family	about US$9.1 billion	Technology
6	Yasumitsu Shigeta	about US$6 billion	Telecommunications
7	Takao Yasuda	about US$4.7 billion	Fashion & retail
8	Hideyuki Busujima & family	about US$4.6 billion	Gambling & casinos
9	Toichi Takenaka & family	about US$4 billion	Construction & engineering
10	Akira Mori & family	about US$3.95 billion	Real estate
11	Ito siblings	about US$3.9 billion	Fashion & retail
12	Masahiro Miki	about US$3.7 billion	Fashion & retail (ABC-Mart)
13	Hiroshi Mikitani	about US$3.65 billion	Fashion & retail / e-commerce (Rakuten)
14	Takahisa Takahara	about US$3.6 billion	Fashion & retail (Unicharm)
15	Masahiro Noda	about US$3.3 billion	Technology (Obic)
16	Yuji Otsuka & family	about US$3.2 billion	Technology
17	Kagemasa Kozuki	about US$3.15 billion	Media & entertainment (Konami)
18	Ogawa family	about US$3.1 billion	Food & beverage
19	Uchiyama family	about US$2.9 billion	Manufacturing
20	Mori family	about US$2.7 billion	Real estate
21	Shigenobu Nagamori	about US$2.65 billion	Manufacturing (Nidec)
22	Yoshio Tsuchiya & family	about US$2.6 billion	Fashion & retail
23	Motoya family	about US$2.5 billion	Services
24	Masaaki Arai	about US$2.4 billion	Real estate (Open House)
25	Akio Nitori	about US$2.35 billion	Fashion & retail (Nitori)
26	Katsumi Tada	about US$2.3 billion	Real estate
27	Yoichi & Keiko Erikawa	about US$2.2 billion	Media & entertainment (Koei Tecmo)
28	Yasuhiro Fukushima	about US$2 billion	Media & entertainment
29	Fumio Kaneko	about US$1.95 billion	Services
30	Hiroshi Ishibashi	about US$1.9 billion	Automotive (Bridgestone)
31	Yozo Shimano & family	about US$1.85 billion	Manufacturing
32	Masateru Uno & family	about US$1.8 billion	Fashion & retail
33	Shimamura family	about US$1.75 billion	Fashion & retail
34	Kinoshita family	about US$1.65 billion	Finance & investments
35	Yoshiaki Yoshida	about US$1.6 billion	Fashion & retail
36	Fumio Sakiya	about US$1.55 billion	Manufacturing
37	Yusaku Maezawa	about US$1.5 billion	Technology / e-commerce
38	Chizuko & Michio Matsui	about US$1.46 billion	Finance & investments
39	Tada brothers	about US$1.45 billion	Fashion & retail
40	Hisao Nagata	about US$1.4 billion	Fashion & retail
41	Kobayashi brothers	about US$1.35 billion	Fashion & retail
42	Kazumi Iida & family	about US$1.25 billion	Construction & engineering
43	Shintaro Tsuji	about US$1.2 billion	Fashion & retail (Sanrio)
44	Hajime Satomi	about US$1.19 billion	Gambling & casinos
45	Kenzo Tsujimoto	about US$1.18 billion	Media & entertainment
46	Yasuhide Uno	about US$1.17 billion	Technology
47	Masakazu Idemitsu & family	about US$1.15 billion	Energy
48	Ryuji Arai	about US$1.13 billion	Fashion & retail
49	Shigefumi Wada	about US$1.12 billion	Technology
50	Eiichi Kuriwada	about US$1.1 billion	Logistics

How to read these rankings

Forbes values listed stakes, exchange rates and— for families—often pooled holdings. Private firms are estimated against peers. That is why Bloomberg or real-time indexes can show a different order on another day without making the annual list “wrong.”

If you only want “the richest person in Japan,” the 2026 Forbes Japan list has a clear answer: Masayoshi Son ahead of Tadashi Yanai. If you want to understand why the country still produces so many fortunes from retail, sensors and construction, read ranks 3 through 20—there is often more everyday Japan there than in a Silicon Valley–heavy world ranking.