Global wealth has grown for the third consecutive year,
according to UBS's Global Wealth Report 2026: average individual wealth growth in 2025 outpaced global economic activity. Despite both financial and non-financial assets expanding, the regional distribution of wealth remains uneven. UBS analyzes the key factors that drove wealth accumulation last year.
While wealth is often built through productivity growth or as a reward for taking investment risks, UBS Chief Economist Paul Donovan notes that luck—being in the right place at the right time during a period of structural upheaval—can also play a significant role.
In the short term—year-over-year—foreign exchange rates are the primary driver of the relative performance of different economies. This is because the drivers of wealth accumulation change slowly, and the trends themselves tend to persist over long periods.
Speaking about other changes, Donovan added: "The normalization of household debt burdens is affecting wealth measurement models, which has become evident this year. The great intergenerational wealth transfer continues to influence wealth distribution, as does the rising share of women among asset owners. Inflation and, to some extent, rising living standards have helped lift more people out of the bottom wealth category."
The weakening of the US dollar in 2025 directly drove positive growth in average wealth in dollar terms: from 1.6% in Southeast Asia to almost 4.6% in Greater China, almost 8.8% in North America, about 17% in Western Europe, and 28% in Eastern Europe, according to the report.
More than half of global personal wealth in dollar terms is concentrated in just two markets: the US and Greater China. The US accounts for 37.5%, Europe for 22%, and Greater China for 18.5% of the total personal wealth tracked by UBS.
America's share of global wealth remains stable at 40%.
The number of dollar millionaires in the US in 2025 continued to grow, as it has for many years. UBS estimates that the global millionaire population increased by 1.5%, corresponding to one million new millionaires in 2025, or 2,680 new millionaires per day.
"In absolute terms, the US stands out: more than 440,000 new millionaires will be created in 2025—an increase of 1.9% compared to 2024, or more than 1,200 new millionaires per day," the UBS report states.
Remarkably, none of the 56 markets included in the UBS sample ended 2025 with fewer millionaires than they did at the beginning.
Globally, public debt to GDP ratios are below record levels, though still above recent historical levels. "The great intergenerational wealth transfer is attracting increasing political attention, and governments will likely seek to mobilize private wealth to reduce the cost of debt financing," the report notes.
UBS also notes that one consequence of the spread of social media has been the significantly greater visibility of wealth inequality to the general public. As a result, the perception of inequality has increased even in places where the actual wealth gap has actually narrowed. At the same time, when wealth is more widely distributed across society, it is less likely to attract government attention or become a source of social unrest.