Reinhold Würth Net Worth

Reinhold Würth has an estimated net worth of $27.1 billion, according to Forbes Real-Time Billionaires, Reinhold Würth profile (figures as of October 20, 2026). That is up from $11.2 billion in 2019.

Reinhold Würth is a German businessman tied to the Wuerth Group, a hardware manufacturer in the fasteners business. He joined his father's wholesale screw company in 1949 as its second employee and first apprentice. After his father died in 1954, he took over the business at age 19. Over time, he turned a regional screw wholesaler into a large international group serving commercial and industrial customers.

His wealth comes from building that company into a global manufacturing and distribution business. The first foreign sales unit opened in the Netherlands in 1962, and the group kept expanding across countries and product lines. Würth retired from day-to-day work in 1994 and became honorary chairman of the supervisory board. Forbes put his net worth at $27.1 billion on its real-time billionaires tracker as of October 20, 2026.

How Reinhold Würth built his fortune

Würth made his money through the Wuerth Group, a German company centered on hardware and fasteners. He started very early, joining the family business in 1949. When he took charge in 1954, the company was still a wholesale screw operation. He then spent decades broadening it into a much larger business, adding manufacturing and building an international sales network aimed mainly at commercial and industrial buyers.

The company now operates on a very large scale. According to Forbes notes, the Wuerth Group has annual sales of over $23 billion, more than 400 companies, and 86,000 employees around the world. Würth retired in 1994, but he remains linked to the business as honorary chairman of the supervisory board. Beyond industry, he is also known as an art collector, with a collection that began in 1972.

Forbes net worth over time

Forbes has tracked a major rise in Würth's fortune across the past several years. Its World's Billionaires List estimated him at $11.2 billion in 2019, $11.6 billion in 2020, $16.8 billion in 2021, $19 billion in 2022, $29.7 billion in 2023, $33.6 billion in 2024, and $35.1 billion in 2025. Those gains came while the Wuerth Group remained a huge global business in manufacturing and fasteners.

The most recent Forbes figures show that estimate moving lower in 2026. Forbes listed him at $30.1 billion on the 2026 World's Billionaires List, and later showed $27.1 billion on its real-time tracker in October 2026. Even with that drop, the core source of his wealth stayed the same: his long-held stake in the Wuerth Group, the company he built from a small screw wholesaler into an international enterprise.