UBS Global Wealth Report 2026 Highlights
UBS’s Global Wealth Report 2026 states that global wealth expanded for the third straight year, with average individual wealth growth outpacing the overall rate of global economic activity recorded in 2025. Both financial and non‑financial wealth components increased, although the regional distribution of affluence remained uneven.
Chief Economist Paul Donovan explained that while productivity growth and investment‑risk rewards are traditional wealth generators, being positioned correctly during structural upheavals also contributed significantly. He emphasized that foreign‑exchange movements were the primary driver of relative performance across economies because wealth drivers evolve slowly and trends tend to persist over long periods.
Donovan noted additional influences: the normalization of household‑debt levels, the ongoing Great Wealth Transfer, a rise in female wealth ownership, and inflation‑linked improvements in living standards that lifted more individuals out of the lowest wealth brackets.
The report attributes the weakness of the U.S. dollar in 2025 to positive average wealth growth measured in USD terms: Southeast Asia saw a 1.6% increase, Greater China almost 4.6%, North America nearly 8.8%, Western Europe close to 17%, and Eastern Europe a striking 28%.
Geographically, more than half of the world’s personal wealth measured in U.S. dollars is concentrated in two markets: the United States (37.5% of tracked wealth), Europe (22%), and Greater China (18.5%). The Americas’ share of global wealth remained broadly stable at 40%.
The number of U.S. millionaires rose in 2025, mirroring a global increase of 1.5% that translates to roughly one million new millionaires worldwide—or about 2,680 new millionaires each day. In absolute terms, the United States added over 440,000 new millionaires in 2025, a 1.9% rise over 2024, equating to more than 1,200 new millionaires per day. Notably, none of the 56 markets sampled by UBS closed 2025 with fewer millionaires than at the start of the year.
On the macro‑policy front, global government‑debt ratios are now below their historical peaks, though they remain higher than in the recent past. The Great Wealth Transfer is drawing political attention, with governments likely to seek ways to mobilize private wealth to reduce the cost of debt financing.
UBS also observed that social‑media exposure has made wealth disparities more visible, intensifying perceptions of inequality even in regions where the actual wealth gap has narrowed. Conversely, when wealth is more broadly distributed across society, it is less prone to trigger government scrutiny or fuel social unrest.