Global personal wealth rose in 2025, with a record number of new millionaires, Swiss bank UBS said on Tuesday.
Last year saw nearly one million people worldwide become US dollar millionaires – the equivalent of 2,600 people a day, according to the bank’s estimates.
The United States accounted for almost half of the new millionaires in 2025, adding more than 440,000 individuals, followed by China, Japan, Germany, Britain and France, which each count more than two million millionaires in total.
Switzerland’s largest bank, which is among the world’s largest wealth managers, produces the annual UBS Global Wealth Report, which assesses trends in personal wealth.
It covers all financial and non-financial assets, mainly property, minus debts, with asset values converted to dollars.
“The real story is one of continued expansion: more people moving up the wealth ladder,” the report said.
“The gains… point to a world that continued to build wealth, deepening its wealthy population and extending a long upward trend.”
UBS said that in 2025, global personal wealth grew by 10.8 percent in dollar terms, significantly outstripping growth seen in 2024 (4.6 percent) and 2023 (4.2 percent).
Wealth growth was strongest in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, at 17.5 percent – helped by a weaker dollar – followed by the Americas at 8.5 percent. Asia-Pacific recorded growth of 5.9 percent.
Over half of global personal wealth remains concentrated in the United States and mainland China combined.
As of 2020, South Korea has led the growth in average real wealth growth across the 56 markets analyzed, with gains of over 50 percent. There were increases of over 25 percent in Croatia, Norway, Latvia, Taiwan and Bulgaria.
– 1.5% are millionaires –
In terms of average real wealth per adult, Switzerland leads with $910,382, followed by the United States ($696,277), Luxembourg ($654,732), Hong Kong ($648,267) and Australia ($616,306).
The report said 42 percent of the world’s population had assets worth less than $10,000; and 41 percent have assets worth $10,000 to $100,000.
At the top, 15.3 percent have net assets worth $100,000 to $1,000,000, and in the top bracket, 1.5 percent have more than a million dollars.
The report noted that being a millionaire is not about having a million dollars in the bank, with owner-occupied property representing the single largest asset for most people up to the millionaire level. So rising property values were pushing people into millionaire status.
As for billionaires, across 47 markets covered, UBS counted 3,302 in April — an increase of 383, or 13.1 percent, on the last report.
More than 1,000 live in the United States, with 562 in China and 211 in India.
“We count 18 individuals with wealth between $50 billion and $100 billion and another 19 with assets above $100 billion, 15 of which are located in the United States,” UBS said.
