Music

Paul McCartney

Singer-songwriter

Estimated net worth

Moderate confidence

$1.3B

Reported range $1.2B – $1.4B

Music publishing (MPL Communications)
Beatles catalog royalties
Touring
Real estate

McCartney's reported fortune is built on five decades of Beatles and solo-era royalties, plus MPL Communications, the music publishing company he founded that owns rights to more than 25,000 songs by other writers as well as his own catalog. The Sunday Times Rich List has tracked his wealth rising steadily, crossing the billion-pound mark and naming him Britain's first billionaire musician. The figure the Rich List publishes is a joint estimate with his wife, Nancy Shevell, who has separate inherited wealth from her family's trucking business.

The Sunday Times Rich List figure (£1.055bn / roughly $1.3B in 2026) is explicitly a joint estimate for McCartney and his wife Nancy Shevell, who has independently reported inherited wealth (roughly £50m) from her father's trucking business; the two are not separated in the published total.
Forbes' own McCartney profile does not currently publish a comprehensive net-worth total, only historical annual earnings figures (e.g., $37M for the 2020 Celebrity 100 ranking), so no independent US-based Tier 2 net-worth cross-check exists.
He famously does not own the original Lennon-McCartney Beatles song publishing rights (long controlled by Sony/ATV, following Michael Jackson's earlier acquisition), though a 2017 settlement let him begin reclaiming certain US rights.

Worth knowing

The £1.055bn Sunday Times Rich List figure often cited for McCartney is explicitly a joint estimate with his wife, Nancy Shevell, who has separately reported inherited wealth — the two aren't split out in the published total.

Reviewed August 20, 2026

Choose someone to compare

Who lives in this wealth neighborhood?

Paul McCartney’s estimated net worth places them near these public figures, although their reported ranges reveal considerable uncertainty.

$772M$1.6B

J.K. Rowling
$1.3B
Paul McCartney
$1.3B
Tyler Perry
$1.4B
LeBron James
$1.4B
Matt Stone
$1.4B
Trey Parker
$1.4B
Shah Rukh Khan
$1.4B

Shown on a scale zoomed to this neighborhood, not the sitewide comparison scale. Tap a bar for a note on that person’s estimate.

Why estimates differ

A recent authoritative estimate. The Sunday Times Rich List (a Tier 2 original wealth-analysis publication for UK-connected individuals) published a 2026 figure of £1.055bn, converted here at roughly the GBP/USD rate reporters used at the time (~1.27) to approximately $1.3B. Forbes' own McCartney profile does not currently publish a comparable total net-worth figure.

Lowest reported: $1.2B
Estimated net worth: $1.3B
Highest reported: $1.4B

Every source below was checked directly and graded by how strong its methodology is — see the tier system for what each tier means.

Forbes
Jun 4, 2020 · Tier 2 · Original professional estimate
Included to show Forbes has not published a comparable net-worth total for McCartney; not used as the displayed estimate.
Original analysisPaul McCartney (Forbes profile) (opens in a new tab)
Contactmusic.com
May 2026 · Tier 3 · Reputable reported information
$1.3B — Most recent reporting of the underlying Sunday Times Rich List (Tier 2) figure; used for the displayed estimate.
Cites another sourcePaul McCartney Tops £1bn While Oasis Brothers Storm Sunday T… (opens in a new tab)
Fox Business
May 17, 2024 · Tier 3 · Reputable reported information
$1.3B — Earlier data point in the same Sunday Times Rich List series, showing the joint-wealth trend and the GBP/Nancy Shevell caveat explicitly.
Cites another sourceBeatles legend Paul McCartney named Britain's first billiona… (opens in a new tab)

How the estimate has changed

This profile’s most recent substantive review was August 20, 2026, showing an estimated net worth of $1.3B (range $1.2B – $1.4B). Only one reviewed snapshot exists so far — a change history will appear here as future reviews are published. Movement between reviews can reflect real changes in reported wealth, or simply a change in methodology or sourcing; WORTHS will always distinguish the two when it shows up.

Public figures rarely disclose a complete account of their assets and liabilities. These figures are reported estimates assembled from the cited sources, not audited financial statements.

Read the methodology

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