List of female chess grandmasters

There are 42 female chess players who hold the title of Grandmaster (GM), the highest title awarded by the International Chess Federation (FIDE). The Grandmaster title was formally established by FIDE in 1950. Modern regulations typically require players to achieve a FIDE rating of 2500 and three tournament norms that include a GM-level performance rating of 2600 to be awarded the title, although there are various exceptions. Since 1993, players who win the Women's World Championship are directly awarded the Grandmaster title. Like all FIDE titles, the Grandmaster title is awarded for life and does not require a player to maintain a performance level or remain active after the award.

Nona Gaprindashvili, a Soviet chess player from Georgia, was the first woman to become a grandmaster in 1978, receiving the title largely by virtue of being the first woman to achieve a GM norm a year earlier. In 1991, Susan Polgar became the first woman to achieve the Grandmaster title through a full set of standard norms based on performance rating. Later that year at age 15, her younger sister Judit Polgár became the youngest grandmaster in history, breaking the previous record set by Bobby Fischer. Although there were only six female grandmasters by 2000 and the number of female grandmasters has never been more than a few percent of the total, the turn of the century saw a substantial increase in the number of women to be awarded the title. This increase in the number of grandmasters has made it possible to stage women-only round-robin tournaments such as FIDE Women's Grand Prix events that feature predominantly grandmasters. At the same time, in an era where the Grandmaster title is no longer indicative of the upper echelon of chess overall, Hou Yifan has been the only player since 2000 to join Judit Polgár and Maia Chiburdanidze as female grandmasters who have been ranked in the top 100 among all players.

As of 2023, all female grandmasters are alive, and the vast majority who obtained the title since 2000 are still active. China and Russia have had the most female grandmasters, and seven countries have had more than one. Nearly all female grandmasters are from Europe or Asia, and Irina Krush of the United States is the only one from another continent. Judit Polgár's record for the youngest female grandmaster was beaten in 2002 by Koneru Humpy and was lowered again in 2008 by Hou Yifan, who became a grandmaster at age 14. Beyond the players who hold the GM title, there are over 400 additional women who have achieved the separate Woman Grandmaster (WGM) title, which has different requirements.^[A]

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