"More Than Ever": Nearly 1 Million People Became Millionaires in 2025 — UBS

In 2025, global wealth grew at its fastest pace in recent years, resulting in nearly 1 million new dollar millionaires worldwide. This was revealed in the annual Global Wealth Report published by UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank. The report is available to Oninvest.

To prepare the report, UBS analyzed the situation in 56 markets, which analysts estimate account for more than 92% of global wealth.

— Global personal wealth grew by 10.8% last year, accelerating from 4.6% in 2024 and 4.2% in 2023. According to a UBS study, one of the drivers of this surge was the rally in financial markets.

— In 2025, the world saw “more millionaires than ever before, anywhere”: their total number grew by 1.5%—an increase of 2,680 every day, according to UBS. Nearly half of this growth came from the United States, where more than 441,000 people joined the ranks of those with seven-figure fortunes, the report states.

— Unlike the “everyday millionaires” category, the number and wealth of the richest groups (with a net worth of $5 million or more) grew at a more moderate pace globally—an average of 7–8% per year. However, some countries have recorded double-digit growth rates. Mainland China emerged as the clear leader, with an average annual growth rate of nearly 31% in the $50 million to $100 million wealth segment. Australia, which ranked second, also demonstrated stable double-digit growth rates across all three groups ($5–10 million, $10–50 million, and $50–100 million). In the U.S., growth rates in these categories were only slightly better than the global average. In the United Arab Emirates, the number of millionaires with a net worth of $10 million or more grew by more than 10%, and in the $50–100 million segment, by nearly 12%.

— Wealth growth in the European region, when measured in U.S. dollars, turned out to be disproportionately rapid. UBS attributes this trend primarily to the decline in the dollar’s exchange rate against the euro last year.

— At the same time, inequality has worsened against the backdrop of rising average global wealth since 2020. Median wealth figures, which more accurately reflect conditions in the middle of the distribution, have declined in most countries. This underscores the widening gap between the wealthiest citizens and the rest of the population, according to UBS.

— The report highlights differences in investment culture across countries. For example, in Sweden, Israel, and Taiwan, financial assets account for over 80% of gross wealth. This is even higher than in the U.S., which has the world’s largest stock market (79%). At the opposite end of the spectrum are Turkey and India, where financial instruments account for less than 20% and about 26%, respectively. In these countries, private capital is traditionally directed toward real estate and other non-financial assets.

— In 2025, high-net-worth investors held an average of 20% of their total portfolio in art. UBS experts emphasize that this figure has remained stable over the past six years, despite geopolitical shocks. At the same time, the share of investments in art directly increases along with the investor’s total capital.

— In a special interview for the report, Joel Mokyr, the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics laureate, emphasized that the key factor in a nation’s long-term prosperity is not physical capital, but rather the development of human potential and the accumulation of scientific skills (STEM). In his view, the technologies of the future capable of eclipsing AI in terms of economic impact will be nuclear fusion, messenger RNA (mRNA) technologies in medicine, and rejuvenation and life-extension technologies.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor