Tree planting has the potential to improve the livelihoods of millions of people as well as to support environmental services such as biodiversity preservation. Planting however needs to be executed wisely if benefits are to be achieved. We have developed the GlobalUsefulNativeTrees (GlobUNT) database to directly support the principles advocated by the ‘golden rules for reforestation’, including planting tree mixtures that maximize the benefits to local livelihoods and the diversity of native trees. Developed primarily by combining data from GlobalTreeSearch with the World Checklist of Useful Plant Species, GlobUNT includes 14,014 tree species that can be filtered for ten major use categories, across 242 countries and territories. In a subcontinental comparison GlobUNT revealed that Malesia had the highest useful tree species richness (3,349) and was also richest for materials (2,723), medicines (1,533), human food (958), fuel (734), environmental uses (632), social uses (614), animal food (443), poisons (322) and invertebrate food (266).