Artūras Zuokas

His wife, Agnė Zuokienė (also known as Augusta Zuokė), is a politician who served as a Member of the Seimas from late 2009 until 2012.

Artūras Zuokas was born on 1968-02-21 in the city of Kaunas, Lithuanian SSR.

In 1998, he graduated from Vilnius University with a degree in Journalism.

As a Seimas member (since November 2024), Zuokas receives a monthly salary of roughly €4,000 "į rankas" (net, for a rank-and-file MP).

Until mid-2023, members of the Vilnius City Council did not have a set salary (they only received compensation for meeting attendance and related expenses). A law change effective July 2023 introduced a monthly salary for councilors, calculated as a percentage of the mayor’s pay.

During his tenure as Mayor of Vilnius (particularly by 2015), his official gross monthly salary was a bit above €2,000 (about €1,500 after taxes).

He reported from numerous conflict zones of the crumbling Soviet Union, including Nagorno-Karabakh, Chechnya, Georgia (South Ossetia and Abkhazia), and Moldova, and he was present in Moscow during the August 1991 coup attempt.

In 1991, during the Gulf War, he spent nearly two months reporting from Iraq and also visited Iran to cover events there.

He worked as a freelance correspondent for the Lithuanian daily newspaper “Respublika” in 1990–1991.

In the early 1990s, he worked as a war correspondent and filed reports for the British broadcasters Independent Television News (ITN) and Worldwide Television News (WTN).

In 1989, he and several colleagues established the Lithuanian Humanist Youth Union (Lietuvos humanistinė jaunimo sąjunga) and started publishing a monthly magazine called “Homo Sovieticus.”

In 1989, before beginning his university studies, Zuokas persuaded the editors of “Sąjūdžio žinios” to send him as a correspondent to the conflict zone of the first Georgia–Abkhazia clashes.

He became a Member of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania on 2024-11-14 (starting the 2024–2028 parliamentary term).

He is the chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party (Laisvė ir teisingumas) since its establishment in 2020.

From 2015 to 2024 he was a member of the Vilnius City Council, serving as a City Development Committee member and opposition leader.

He served as the chairman of the Lithuanian Freedom Union (Liberals) party from 2014 until 2020.

He was once again Mayor of Vilnius during 2011–2015 (second term as mayor).

He was elected to the Seimas in 2008 (for the 2008–2012 term) and served as a parliamentarian until 2009.

Although Zuokas’s party won seats in the 2004 parliamentary elections, he did not take up a Seimas mandate for the 2004–2008 term, choosing to remain as Mayor of Vilnius instead.

He was the chairman of the Liberal and Centre Union (LiCS) from 2003 to 2010.

Zuokas served as the Mayor of Vilnius from 2000 until 2007 (first term).

He served as deputy chairman of the Lithuanian Liberal Union from 1999 until 2003.

Since December 4, 2024, he has been a member of the Seimas Anti-Corruption Commission.

Since November 19, 2024, he has been serving as a member of the Audit Committee of the Seimas.

During 2008–2009, he served as a member of the Seimas State Governance and Municipalities Committee.

From 2008 to 2009, he was also a member of the Seimas Anti-Corruption Commission.

In the 2024 parliamentary elections, he was nominated by the Freedom and Justice party and won in the Naujininkų–Rasų (No. 14) single-member constituency.

In the 2024 parliamentary elections, he was nominated by the Freedom and Justice party and won a Seimas seat in the Naujininkų–Rasų (No. 14) single-member constituency (Vilnius), defeating other candidates in that district.

In the 2023 Vilnius mayoral election, he was defeated in the second round by Valdas Benkunskas, with Zuokas receiving 47.4% and Benkunskas 51.3% of the vote.

In the 2020 Seimas elections, Zuokas’s newly merged party Freedom and Justice also failed to cross the 5% threshold – it garnered only around 2.1–2.6% of the vote in the multi-member constituency (winning no list seats). The party obtained just one mandate via a single-member district (won by a candidate other than Zuokas).

In the 2016 parliamentary elections, Zuokas’s Lithuanian Freedom Union (Liberals) party won only 2.14% of the national vote, below the 5% threshold (thus earning no proportional seats). Zuokas personally ran in the Vilnius Senamiesčio single-member constituency, where he took 16.7% of the vote in the first round and advanced to the runoff, but lost to Mykolas Majauskas (who had 35% in round 1).

In 2015, during the first direct mayoral election in Vilnius, incumbent Zuokas advanced to the runoff but lost to Remigijus Šimašius.

In the May 2014 Lithuanian presidential election, Zuokas ran as an independent (leading the Už Lietuvą sąjungą “Taip”) and received 5.3% of the vote in the first round.

In the 2009 European Parliament elections, Zuokas led the Liberal and Centre Union list but the party fell short of the threshold and won no seats.

He was elected to the Seimas in the 2008 elections (2008–2012 term of Parliament).

Zuokas has noted that he became a millionaire in his mid-20s: he says his “first million” (about 4 million Lt) came when he was ~26 years old, earned by buying and redeveloping a prime property in Vilnius and selling it to the U.S. Embassy for use as the ambassador’s residence.

As of the 2024 asset declarations (made public in 2025), Zuokas was the second wealthiest member of the Seimas, with about €1.97 million in declared assets.

According to his 2024 asset declaration, Zuokas owned roughly €1.38 million worth of corporate shares (via UAB BNA Grupė), about €382,000 in Lithuanian real estate (a flat), ~€134,000 in bank savings, and approximately €21,000 in art/valuable items. He also declared liabilities of just over €417,000 in loans taken.

His wife Augusta (Agnė) Zuokienė’s 2024 declaration showed she had about €64,500 worth of real estate and just €2,100 in deposits, while carrying over €118,000 in debt liabilities.

He acquired a small villa in Sicily in 2019; in mid-2025 it was reported that the property was not listed in his personal asset declaration, as Zuokas explained it is held through an Italian company (with him as beneficiary via BNA Grupė).

Between 2014 and 2024, Zuokas’s officially declared assets grew from roughly €1.69 million (5.84 mln Lt, including his spouse’s assets) to about €1.97 million. By 2024, his declared holdings comprised around €1.38 million in corporate stock (largely via BNA Grupė), €382,000 in Lithuanian real estate, ~€134,000 in bank deposits, and ~€58,000 in other property, alongside luxury items worth ~€21,000; he also reported over €417,000 in outstanding loans.

In 2014, while serving as Vilnius mayor, Zuokas and his wife Augusta declared combined assets of about 5.84 million litų (approximately €1.69 million). This included ~4.2 million Lt in corporate shares, 800 thousand Lt in real estate, and over 500 thousand Lt in savings. At the time, Zuokas had also lent out 1.33 million Lt and had 1.49 million Lt in personal debts.

Zuokas’s own narrative of earning his “first million” in the mid-1990s by redeveloping and selling a Vilnius property to the U.S. Embassy has largely gone unexamined – investigative commentary in 2023 noted unanswered questions about how he acquired the building, the costs, and true profit of that deal.

Zuokas is the majority owner of UAB “Isala” – holding about 96.56% of the company’s shares (30% directly and the rest via BNA Grupė).

Through BNA Grupė, Zuokas indirectly controls about 95% of UAB “BNA Ergo.”

He owns more than half of the shares of the Žalgiris Yacht Club in Trakai (Trakų miesto “Žalgirio” jachtklubas).

He again held the position of director at UAB “BNA Grupė” from 2015 until 2024.

He helped establish McDonald’s in Lithuania, partnering with the company to open its first restaurant in Vilnius in 1996 (by providing premises and investment for the franchise).

He served as the director of the private company UAB “BNA Grupė” from 1994 to 1999.

Together with his family, he acquired the franchise rights for the United Colors of Benetton fashion brand in Lithuania in 1993.

In 1992, Zuokas founded the news agency “Baltijos naujienų agentūra” (BNA) in Vilnius.

He is a member of the Vilnius Club (Vilniaus klubas) and also of the Vilnius Old Town Rotary Club.

He is a member of the “Gurmanų gildija” (Guild of Gourmands).

He sits on the council of Ukraine’s Institute of Political Science (Ukrainos politikos mokslų instituto taryba).

He is a member of the Lithuanian Journalists’ Union as well as the International Federation of Journalists.

In August 2019, amid divorce proceedings, around 100 boxes of items belonging to the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center were removed from Zuokas’s residence by Vilnius city officials. Zuokas and the Jonas Mekas Foundation demanded the items be returned, asserting they were the foundation’s property (and not the family’s).

In March 2008, the Vilnius Regional Court convicted Zuokas for illicitly attempting to influence city councillor Vilmantas Drėma and fined him 12,500 Lt.

In 2020, Zuokas was awarded the Gusi Peace Prize for fostering cultural ties with Asia.

In 2011, he was a recipient of the Ig Nobel Prize (at a Harvard ceremony) for his creative protest against illegally parked cars in Vilnius.

He received the Baltic–American Freedom Foundation’s award “For the Art of Governance” in 2005.

In 2003, President Vaira Vīķė-Freiberga of Latvia bestowed upon him the Order of the Three Stars for promoting good relations between Lithuania and Latvia.

Also in 2003, he was named “Man of the Year” by the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture (Chicago) and the Chicago Sister Cities program for his leadership in Vilnius.

In 2003, he was granted the title of Honorary Member of Vilnius Gediminas Technical University.

In 2002, he was honored by the Junior Chamber International as one of the Outstanding Young Persons of the World.

He received the title “Metų ekonomikos variklis 2002” (Economic Engine of the Year 2002) from the business daily Verslo Žinios.

In 2001, President Jacques Chirac of France awarded Zuokas the National Order of Merit for developing bilateral relations with France.

He received the magazine Archiforma’s “Architektūros draugas 2001” (Friend of Architecture 2001) award in 2001.