What Counts as High Net Worth
High net worth typically refers to individuals with liquid financial assets exceeding 1 million, a threshold used by regulators, wealth managers, and financial institutions. The Securities and Exchange Commission uses this benchmark to define accredited investors, who gain access to private placements and certain hedge funds. Globally, Credit Suisse and Knight Frank estimate that the number of adults meeting this threshold surpassed 15 million in 2024, driven by equity market gains, real estate appreciation, and business valuations. Many wealth managers define the next tier, often called ultra-high net worth, as individuals with over 30 million in investable assets, a cutoff used by private banks such as UBS, Goldman Sachs Private Wealth Management, and JP Morgan Chase Private Bank.
In the United States, the Internal Revenue Service does not use a single high-net-worth threshold for tax purposes, but the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 doubled the estate tax exemption, which reached 13.61 million per individual for 2024, effectively shielding many high-net-worth estates from federal levies. The Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances shows that the top 10 percent of U.S. families by net worth held 69 percent of all stocks and mutual funds as of 2022, the latest available survey year, with the median net worth for that group exceeding 1.8 million. The Securities and Exchange Commission's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy provides guidance on accredited investor standards, which include income tests of 200,000 individually or 300,000 jointly over the prior two years.
Global Distribution of High-Net-Worth Individuals
Regional Concentration and Growth
North America remains the largest hub for high-net-worth individuals, with the United States alone hosting an estimated 7.5 million adults in the 1 million-plus liquid asset bracket as of 2024, according to the Knight Frank Wealth Report and the Boston Consulting Group Global Wealth Report. The Asia-Pacific region, led by China, Japan, and India, added the fastest share of new millionaires over the past decade, with the Henley & Partners Global Wealth Migration Review projecting continued outflows and inflows tied to business opportunities, tax regimes, and residency programs. Europe's high-net-worth population is concentrated in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Switzerland, where private banking assets under management exceeded 2.5 trillion euros in 2024, as reported by the European Banking Federation and EY's Global Wealth Management Report.
Cities such as New York, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Tokyo host the densest clusters of wealth management offices, family offices, and private equity firms serving this demographic. New York City alone is estimated to host over 300,000 millionaires as of 2024, according to the New York City Economic Development Corporation and Knight Frank's City Wealth Index. Singapore's Monetary Authority reported that the city-state's private banking assets grew to over 600 billion dollars in 2024, driven by family offices, tech entrepreneurs, and regional headquarters of multinational corporations.
How High-Net-Worth Individuals Invest
Asset Allocation and Private Markets
High-net-worth portfolios increasingly allocate capital to private markets, including private equity, venture capital, real estate, and hedge funds, which together accounted for an estimated 25 percent of global investable wealth in 2024, per Preqin and Bain & Company's Global Private Equity Report. Public equities remain a core holding, with many individuals concentrating positions in technology stocks such as Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Alphabet, as well as in publicly traded shares of companies like Tesla, which reported a market capitalization above 1 trillion dollars in 2024