Who is the highest-paid actress in the world in 2026? At a time when Hollywood’s gender pay gap is still far from settled, the sums commanded by the industry’s leading women remain staggering.

The point is that the tally is no longer built on a single film fee. Hollywood’s top female stars now earn from streaming contracts, their own production companies, global endorsements, fashion and beauty lines, and even tech investments—to the point that several actresses make more from their business ventures than from acting.

The result is a ranking of the world’s highest-paid actresses that increasingly reads like a list of entrepreneurs. Here is who dominates the 2026 rankings, with a look at the fortunes these movie stars have built along the way.

How Hollywood actresses make their money today

The image of the actress-who-only-acts tells only a sliver of the reality in 2026. The earnings of the biggest female stars now come from several streams that stack on top of one another: film fees, deals with streaming platforms and limited series, ownership of production companies, endorsement agreements with major brands, ventures in fashion and beauty, licensing deals, real-estate and tech-startup investments, and partnerships built on social media.

It is a shift in paradigm that the ranking makes plain: many of the highest-paid actresses sit at the top not so much for a single role as for the value of the companies they have founded and the deals they run behind the camera.

The world’s highest-paid actresses in 2026

Estimating actresses’ earnings is no simple task: contracts are not public and often include clauses, bonuses, and box-office percentages that are hard to reconstruct. Every year, though, estimates are compiled that combine fees, endorsements, and back-end deals. Here is the ranking of the 10 highest-paid actresses in the world in 2026, according to figures from Enterprise Wired, with estimated net worths from the well-known site Celebrity Net Worth. All figures are in US dollars.

  • Scarlett Johansson (USA) — $56 million earned, estimated net worth $165 million. At the top of the ranking is Scarlett Johansson, estimated to have taken in roughly $56 million in 2026, thanks above all to her «first-dollar gross» deals—contracts that grant her a share of gross receipts from the very first dollar—and to her lead role in Jurassic World: Rebirth. It is a model that has also made her the highest-grossing actress in box-office history.
  • Margot Robbie (Australia) — $50 million, estimated net worth $60 million. The Australian owes much of her $50 million to the eye-popping back-end deal tied to Barbie and to her behind-the-scenes work with her production company LuckyChap, which is behind the eagerly awaited film based on The Sims. A prime example of how the highest-paid actresses now build empires that reach well beyond acting.
  • Sofia Vergara (Colombia) — $43 million, estimated net worth $180 million. The Colombian’s $43 million is driven by her role as a judge on America’s Got Talent and by residuals from Modern Family, on top of partnerships with major brands. Vergara has turned her charisma into a full-fledged brand.
  • Nicole Kidman (Australia) — $41 million, estimated net worth $250 million. For Nicole Kidman, the $41 million comes from prestige streaming, with fees topping $1 million an episode for the second season of Lioness. A career that has alternated blockbusters and independent projects for decades.
  • Jennifer Aniston (USA) — $38 million, estimated net worth $320 million. A sizable chunk of Jennifer Aniston’s $38 million still comes from Friends residuals and from her role in The Morning Show, whose fourth season confirms her central place in Apple’s catalog. Rounding out the picture is the success of her beauty brand LolaVie.
  • Zendaya (USA) — $35 million, estimated net worth $40 million. At just 29, Zendaya earns $35 million, between the $1 million an episode for Euphoria and the hefty fees for the Spider-Man and Dune franchises. Her wealth is also growing thanks to luxury collaborations with Louis Vuitton and Bulgari.
  • Angelina Jolie (USA) — $35 million, estimated net worth $120 million. Angelina Jolie also lands at $35 million, buoyed by her long-standing $20 million-a-film fees and targeted investments in wine and real estate. In 2026 she returned to the spotlight with the biopic Maria.
  • Reese Witherspoon (USA) — $34 million, estimated net worth $300 million. Reese Witherspoon’s $34 million comes from The Morning Show and the proceeds of her production company Hello Sunshine, sold in 2021 at a $900 million valuation. A caveat, though: that figure refers to the company, not her personal fortune, which Celebrity Net Worth estimates at $300 million.
  • Gal Gadot (Israel) — $31 million, estimated net worth $50 million. The Israeli star takes in $31 million thanks to $10 million-a-film action roles in franchises such as Wonder Woman and Red Notice, alongside her own production company.
  • Jennifer Lawrence (USA) — $28 million, estimated net worth $160 million. Closing out the top ten is Jennifer Lawrence with $28 million, a fee that holds steady between $15 million and $20 million a film and a record $25 million for a comedy. In 2026 she returns with Die, My Love, while her fortune still rests on the success of the Hunger Games saga.

A dynamic ranking that says little about current box-office pull

By this reckoning, Scarlett Johansson would be the highest-paid actress in the world in 2026, with estimated earnings of around $56 million; behind her sit two very different profiles—Margot Robbie, increasingly an entrepreneur, and Sofia Vergara, by now a television brand in her own right.

The box office deserves a chapter of its own, since it does not always line up with acting fees. On the receipts front, in 2026 it is Zendaya whose films earned the most for theaters: her movies grossed nearly $1.8 billion worldwide, powered by Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which opened to $927 million globally and to a $355 million debut weekend in the United States—the second-best opening of all time in North America. She also appeared in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and in The Drama, in what is by every measure the richest year of her box-office career.

Behind the numbers lie a few now-structural dynamics. The first is streaming, which pays better than ever: Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and HBO Max keep pouring enormous sums into content built around stars, driving up the fees for prestige series. The second is ownership of production companies, which generates recurring revenue and builds long-term wealth, as the cases of Reese Witherspoon and Margot Robbie show. Add to that the fast-expanding partnerships with luxury—fashion, jewelry, beauty—a phenomenon that also involves men, from Timothée Chalamet on down, and the growing ability to monetize social media through sponsorships and direct collaborations. The common thread is a single one: entrepreneurship is redrawing Hollywood, and many of the highest-paid actresses are now founders and investors as much as performers.

The updated ranking, in short, tells the story of an industry in which success is no longer measured by box-office receipts alone. From Scarlett Johansson to Margot Robbie, from Zendaya to Reese Witherspoon, the leading women of cinema have built personal brands that combine acting, producing, streaming, endorsements, and investments. It is a profound shift in Hollywood’s balance of power, where owning a company and navigating the markets can pay as much as—or more than—a starring role.

Editor’s note

This article was originally published in Italian on money.it by Emanuele Di Baldo on August 05, 2026 as «Le attrici più pagate al mondo, la classifica 2026». It has been translated and adapted for an international audience by the Money.it International desk.