Countries With the Most Millionaires Per Capita (2025)
Photo: Goran Grudić / Pexels
Which countries have the most millionaires per capita? In the UBS Global Wealth Report 2026, which covers year-end 2025, the answer is Luxembourg, where the ratio is close to one adult in six, followed by Switzerland and then Hong Kong at roughly one in ten. The United States has by far the most millionaires in absolute terms, about 23.6 million, yet ranks only fourth by density. This article lays out both rankings, explains how the figures are built, and shows why a single number hides a lot of definition and currency choices.
Educational only, not financial advice. Investing involves risk of loss; past performance does not guarantee future results. Consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.
Key takeaways
- UBS counted about 57.5 million US dollar millionaires across its 56-market sample at the end of 2025, equal to 1.5 percent of adults in that sample.
- Luxembourg leads on density (closer to one in six adults), followed by Switzerland and Hong Kong SAR (roughly one in ten).
- The United States has more than 40 percent of all millionaires in the sample (23.6 million) but ranks fourth on density, with nearly 9 percent of adults.
- Every one of the 56 markets ended 2025 with at least as many millionaires as it started with, a first in this report's series.
- Rankings reflect UBS's definition of net worth, end-of-year exchange rates, and revised estimation methods. Compare them with care across years and across publishers.
Two rankings answer two different questions
"Most millionaires" can mean the largest headcount or the largest share of the population. They produce very different lists. The headcount ranking mostly follows population and economic size. The density ranking is dominated by small, wealthy economies, which is why Luxembourg and Switzerland outrank the United States even though the United States has roughly 25 times as many millionaires as Switzerland.
Ranking by density: millionaires as a share of adults
UBS publishes density as US dollar millionaires divided by the adult population. The report text gives exact descriptions for some markets, and the rest below are read from the report's bar chart, so treat the chart-read values as approximate.
| Rank | Market | Share of adults who are USD millionaires, end of 2025 | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Luxembourg | closer to one in six (roughly 16%) | Report text, chart |
| 2 | Switzerland | roughly 13% | Chart reading |
| 3 | Hong Kong SAR | roughly one in ten | Report text |
| 4 | United States | nearly 9% | Report text |
| 5 | Netherlands | nearly 9% | Report text |
| 6 | Denmark | roughly 8% | Chart reading |
| 7 | Norway | roughly 8% | Chart reading |
| 8 | Australia | roughly 8% | Chart reading |
| 9 | Sweden | roughly 6% | Chart reading |
| 10 | Belgium | roughly 6% | Chart reading |
Source: UBS Global Wealth Report 2026, chapter 2 (density of millionaires). The report also puts the United Kingdom and France around 4.5 percent and Japan, Spain, and Italy between 2.5 and 2.8 percent.
UBS adds a pattern: "small economies with good general standards of living appear more frequently amongst the list of markets with higher millionaire density," and the United States "is the exception" among large economies (UBS Global Wealth Report 2026). The previous edition highlighted that more than one in seven adults was a millionaire in Luxembourg and Switzerland. The 2026 edition adds that in Luxembourg the ratio is now closer to one in six.
Ranking by headcount: how many millionaires live there
The count table tells a different story. Numbers are in thousands, and the report presents the table as a selection of markets.
| Rank | Market | USD millionaires (thousands) | Rank | Market | USD millionaires (thousands) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 23,627 | 11 | Spain | 1,077 |
| 2 | Mainland China | 5,305 | 12 | Switzerland | 944 |
| 3 | Japan | 2,902 | 13 | India | 944 |
| 4 | Germany | 2,648 | 14 | Taiwan | 772 |
| 5 | United Kingdom | 2,428 | 15 | Hong Kong SAR | 628 |
| 6 | France | 2,388 | 16 | Belgium | 556 |
| 7 | Australia | 1,634 | 17 | Sweden | 507 |
| 8 | South Korea | 1,317 | 18 | Russia | 447 |
| 9 | Netherlands | 1,294 | 19 | Brazil | 386 |
| 10 | Italy | 1,235 | 20 | Saudi Arabia | 348 |
Source: UBS Global Wealth Report 2026, "The UBS Millionaire Index." Further entries in the report include Mexico (333), Singapore (244), Israel (195), Ireland (192), the United Arab Emirates (183), and Luxembourg (85).
The United States holds more than 40 percent of the 57.5 million total. Western Europe is home to slightly fewer than 15 million millionaires, about 25 percent of the total, and a nearly identical number live in Asia-Pacific, led by mainland China with over 5.3 million. Switzerland and India host nearly identical numbers, roughly 944,000 each, even though India has vastly more people.
A quick arithmetic check
Density and count together imply an adult population, which is a good sanity test. Luxembourg's 85,000 millionaires at roughly 16 percent implies about half a million adults. Switzerland's 944,000 at roughly 13 percent implies about seven million adults. The United States' 23.6 million at nearly 9 percent implies roughly 265 million. These are back-of-envelope figures derived from approximate chart readings, but they land in plausible territory, which suggests the ratios are being read correctly.
How a millionaire is defined and counted
The figures above come from one source, and the method behind them matters. UBS defines net worth, which it also calls wealth, as the value of financial assets and real assets (principally housing) owned by private individuals, less their debts. Private pension fund assets are included. Entitlements to state pensions are not counted unless they are fully funded, human capital is excluded, and so are assets and debts owned by the state (UBS methodology, 2026 edition).
Several consequences follow.
- A home counts. Someone with a paid-off house worth USD 1.1 million and no other assets is a millionaire in this dataset. That is why property-heavy markets can score higher than their stock markets alone would suggest.
- Debt is subtracted. A mortgage reduces net worth, so two households with the same house can sit on different sides of the line.
- Adults only. Wealth owned by children is attributed to their parents by dividing total wealth by the adult population.
- Year-end dollars. Valuations are year-end values, usually expressed in US dollars at end-period exchange rates.
- Modeled, not fully surveyed. Year-end wealth figures rest on direct observations or UBS and PwC Switzerland calculations depending on data availability. Distribution and inequality statistics come from a model that uses macroeconomic variables.
The sample is 56 markets, which UBS estimates represent over 92 percent of the world's wealth. Countries outside the sample do not appear anywhere in the ranking, which has consequences for tiny jurisdictions, as the next section shows.
Why the numbers change when the method changes
UBS notes that it "routinely revisit[s] the data and the methodology" used to estimate the number of millionaires, and that as a result the figures "are not comparable with those shown in previous editions." The effect is visible. The 2025 edition counted almost 24 million millionaires in the United States (23,831 thousand) at the end of 2024. The 2026 edition puts the end-2025 figure at 23.6 million, even though it reports the United States added more than 441,000 millionaires during 2025. The two editions are not describing the same measurement, so a drop from one report to the next is a revision, not a decline. Never chain figures across editions.
Other publishers count different things
Capgemini's World Wealth Report 2026 is another widely quoted source. It reports 25.3 million high-net-worth individuals at the end of 2025, up 7.9 percent, holding USD 98.3 trillion, up 8.7 percent (Capgemini). That is less than half UBS's millionaire count. The gap does not mean one report is wrong. The two use different populations and definitions, and the page summary does not give a threshold, so check the methodology before mixing numbers from different sources in one table.
Where Monaco and Liechtenstein fit
Older rankings often put Monaco and Liechtenstein at the top, with figures like "one in three residents" attached. UBS's sample does not include Monaco: the 2025 edition says so explicitly ("It is worth noting that Monaco is not part of our sample"), and neither Monaco nor Liechtenstein appears in the list of covered markets in the 2026 edition.
There is a measurement reason for the omission. Monaco's resident population was 38,857 in 2025, according to the principality's statistics institute (IMSEE). With a population that small, a handful of residents changes the ratio sharply, which makes any percentage fragile. I could not find a primary-source millionaire count for either jurisdiction, so this article does not publish one. Treat any precise percentage for these two with suspicion unless it cites a methodology.
Why small, wealthy economies top the density list
UBS offers a modest explanation for the pattern. The number of millionaires in a market "is not always a reflection of its size, its economic strength or even of its average level of wealth per person," and "much depends on factors not related to economic might such as home ownership, private retirement savings and the availability of tax incentives for saving and investing. In other words, it may depend on the prevailing culture of investing" (UBS Global Wealth Report 2026).
Think of density like crowding in a room. A small room with a few dozen people can feel more crowded than a stadium with a hundred thousand, even though the stadium holds far more people in total. Luxembourg is the small room. The United States is the stadium: more millionaires than any other market, spread across a very large adult population.
Switzerland and Luxembourg
Switzerland and Luxembourg combine high incomes with high asset values, though UBS does not give a single cause. Switzerland also tops UBS's 2026 table of average wealth per adult at USD 910,382, and debt there equals 20.5 percent of gross wealth, among the highest shares in the sample. Large debts can coexist with high net worth, which is a reminder that the dataset measures the balance, not the cash flow.
Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and Australia
Hong Kong at roughly one in ten is also a market where financial assets make up a large share of wealth. In UBS's 2026 breakdown, financial assets are 69.3 percent of gross wealth in Hong Kong SAR, 68.9 percent in Japan, and 78.9 percent in the United States. UBS attributes millionaire density in general to home ownership, retirement savings, tax incentives, and investing culture rather than to any one asset class, so similar densities in two markets can have quite different causes.
The United States
The United States ranks fourth on density but first in absolute growth. It created over 440,000 new millionaires in 2025, an increase of 1.9 percent over 2024, or more than 1,200 a day, according to UBS. A very large economy with deep equity markets produces a large millionaire population, but when you divide by 260-plus million adults, the ratio lands below the small-market leaders. For a ranking built on the other end of the scale, see our piece on countries with the most billionaires and the per-capita version in countries with the most billionaires per capita.
Where millionaire counts are growing fastest
Growth rates tell a story that levels cannot. UBS estimates the world's millionaire population grew by 1.5 percent in 2025, close to one million new millionaires, or over 2,680 per day. Not one of the 56 markets finished the year with fewer millionaires than it began with.
| Market | Growth in USD millionaires, 2024 to 2025 | People added |
|---|---|---|
| Lithuania | 8.0% | 921 |
| Türkiye | 6.4% | 5,650 |
| Latvia | 5.7% | 1,131 |
| Hungary | 5.3% | 1,349 |
| Ireland | 5.2% | 9,491 |
| Russia | 5.2% | 21,951 |
| India | 3.4% | 31,033 |
| United States | 1.9% | 441,078 |
| United Kingdom | 1.8% | 43,139 |
| Switzerland | 1.0% | 8,907 |
| Mainland China | 0.3% | 14,079 |
Source: UBS Global Wealth Report 2026, "More and more millionaires, all over the world."
Percent growth and headcount growth pull in opposite directions. Lithuania's 8.0 percent is only 921 people. The United States' 1.9 percent is 441,078 people, almost half of the global gain. UBS also cautions that part of the increase depends on how close to the USD 1 million line the newly minted millionaires were the year before. A market with many people at USD 950,000 can post a large jump from a modest rise in asset prices.
One year earlier the picture was different. In the 2025 edition, which covered 2024, the world added about 684,000 USD millionaires, an increase of 1.2 percent, with Türkiye (8.4 percent) leading and Japan, Czechia, and Estonia among the markets that lost millionaires. Currency is one reason a market can lose dollar millionaires: when a market's currency weakens against the dollar, dollar-denominated wealth shrinks even if local asset values do not move. UBS's chief economist makes the point directly in the 2026 edition: "it is primarily changes in foreign exchange rates that alter the relative performance of different economies' wealth on a year-by-year basis."
Why exchange rates and the one-million line distort rankings
A millionaire in this dataset is a dollar threshold, not a purchasing-power threshold. Three distortions follow.
- Currency swings. If the dollar strengthens, a Swiss or Japanese household with unchanged local assets can fall below USD 1 million. If it weakens, they cross it. The fastest-growing markets in a given year are often ones whose currency appreciated.
- Cost of living. USD 1 million supports very different lifestyles in different markets. In a place with expensive housing, a family's home alone can exceed the threshold. In a lower-cost market, the same amount would be a large fortune. For a view on living costs, see countries with the highest cost of living and countries with the highest purchasing power.
- Inflation of the threshold. The USD 1 million line is fixed in nominal terms. Over time, rising prices push more people over it without making them richer in real terms. Our explainer on how inflation erodes purchasing power covers the mechanism.
What the pyramid says about the broader population
Millionaires are the narrow top of a much wider pyramid. UBS's 2025 snapshot shows the following split of the 56-market sample:
| Wealth band | Share of adults | Number of adults | Share of total wealth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Above USD 1 million | 1.5% | 58 million | 48.4% |
| USD 100,000 to 1 million | 15.3% | 588 million | 38.8% |
| USD 10,000 to 100,000 | 41.1% | 1.58 billion | 12.2% |
| Below USD 10,000 | 42.1% | 1.62 billion | 0.6% |
Source: UBS Global Wealth Report 2026, "The global wealth pyramid 2025."
Two points stand out. First, 1.5 percent of adults hold nearly half the wealth. Second, the lowest band is shrinking: UBS says it is now only marginally wider than the next band up and that the two could switch places before the end of the decade if trends continue. The report also says that although average wealth rose notably in 2025, median wealth actually declined in most markets, "highlighting a growing divide between the wealthiest and the broader population." A rising millionaire count and a falling median can both be true at once.
Millionaire density versus inequality
A country with many millionaires is not necessarily more unequal than one with few. UBS measures wealth inequality with the Gini coefficient, where 0 is perfect equality and 1 is maximum inequality.
| Market | Wealth Gini, 2025 |
|---|---|
| United Arab Emirates | 0.82 |
| Russia | 0.82 |
| South Africa | 0.81 |
| Brazil | 0.81 |
| United States | 0.77 |
| Switzerland | 0.68 |
| Germany | 0.67 |
| Hong Kong SAR | 0.64 |
| United Kingdom | 0.59 |
| Belgium | 0.46 |
| Slovakia | 0.38 |
Source: UBS Global Wealth Report 2026, Gini table (selected markets).
The United States combines a high millionaire count with a high Gini of 0.77. Belgium combines a millionaire density of roughly 6 percent with one of the lowest Ginis in the sample at 0.46. For the full inequality picture, see countries with the highest wealth inequality and wealth inequality: causes and data. Wealth and income are different things as well; UBS cautions that personal wealth is linked to economic might, but that wealth per adult and GDP per adult "can diverge quite significantly." You can compare income-side measures in countries with the highest GDP per capita.
How to read a millionaire ranking without being misled
A short checklist helps when you see a headline number.
- Check the denominator. Is it adults, residents, or households? UBS uses adults, so a "per capita" label from another source may not match.
- Check what counts as wealth. Net worth including housing, or investable assets only? The count can differ by tens of millions of people, as the Capgemini comparison above shows.
- Check the year and edition. Figures revised between editions should not be subtracted.
- Check the sample. A jurisdiction missing from the sample cannot be ranked, however famous it is.
- Check the currency effect. Dollar-based counts move with exchange rates.
- Check whether the source gives a method at all. A precise percentage without a methodology is a warning sign.
Property and savings habits also matter, so related rankings add context. See countries with the highest homeownership rates and countries with the highest household debt for the two sides of the balance sheet, and how compound interest works for why long holding periods build wealth in the first place.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What counts as a millionaire in these rankings? A: In UBS's Global Wealth Report, a millionaire is an adult whose net worth is at least USD 1 million. Net worth is financial assets plus real assets, principally housing, minus debts. Private pension assets are included, human capital is excluded, and values are year-end figures converted at end-period exchange rates. Other publishers use different definitions, so counts are not interchangeable.
Q: Which country has the most millionaires per capita? A: Among the 56 markets in UBS's 2026 report, Luxembourg has the highest density, with a ratio closer to one adult in six. Switzerland is second at roughly 13 percent by chart reading, and Hong Kong SAR is third at roughly one in ten. The report does not cover Monaco or Liechtenstein, so they are not ranked.
Q: Which country has the most millionaires in total? A: The United States, with about 23.6 million at the end of 2025, more than 40 percent of the sample's total. Mainland China is second with about 5.3 million, and Japan is third at about 2.9 million.
Q: How fast is the number of millionaires growing? A: UBS estimates the number of USD millionaires rose 1.5 percent in 2025, nearly one million people or over 2,680 per day. The United States accounted for almost half the new millionaires. The prior year's growth was 1.2 percent, and the report notes that growth rates depend partly on how close new entrants were to the threshold.
Q: Why does the United States rank fourth rather than first on density? A: Density divides millionaires by adults. The United States has the most millionaires, but also a very large adult population, so the share, nearly 9 percent, is lower than in Luxembourg, Switzerland, or Hong Kong SAR. UBS calls the United States the exception among large economies for ranking as high as fourth.
Q: Does being a millionaire mean a high income? A: No. Net worth is a stock and income is a flow. A retiree with a paid-off home worth USD 1.2 million and modest savings is a millionaire on paper but may have a modest income. UBS also points out that wealth is driven by home ownership, retirement savings, and a culture of investing as well as by salaries, which is why income rankings and wealth rankings often disagree.
The bottom line
A millionaire ranking is really three rankings stacked together: who has the most people over the line, who has the highest share of adults over it, and whose currency and housing market happened to push households across it that year. On UBS's 2026 numbers, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Hong Kong lead on density while the United States dominates on headcount, and all 56 tracked markets ended 2025 with more millionaires than they started with. The more durable lesson is how fragile the comparison is: it rests on a dollar threshold, a net-worth definition that counts housing, year-end exchange rates, and estimates that UBS itself says are revised from edition to edition. Use these rankings for rough orientation, and be suspicious of any list that gives a very precise percentage without telling you how it was built.
Related Reading
- Countries With the Most National Debt Per Capita (2025)
- Richest Countries in the World by GDP Per Capita (2025)
- Countries With the Largest Stock Markets (2025)
- Countries With the Largest Sovereign Wealth Funds (2025)
- Countries With the Most Billionaires (2025 Rankings)
Sources
- UBS, Global Wealth Report 2026 (17th edition, year-end 2025 data) and Global Wealth Report 2025 (16th edition, year-end 2024 data)
- Capgemini, World Wealth Report 2026
- Monaco statistics institute, IMSEE
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About the Author
SciHub101 is an independent science and technology publication founded and edited by Buğra Sözeri, a software engineer and app developer based in Türkiye. AI tools assist with drafting and research. Source documentation in the existing archive is uneven, and articles are being reviewed and corrected. The Editorial Team byline identifies editorial responsibility; it does not certify specialist or independent human review. Where we compare products, anything built by our own team is labelled as such — see the editorial guidelines and About page for how corrections and disclosures work.
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