Investing.com — Global wealth has grown for the third consecutive year, says ’s Global Wealth Report 2026, with growth in average individual wealth outpacing the global rate of economic activity in 2025. While both financial and non-financial wealth have grown, the regional distribution of affluence has been uneven, and UBS discusses some of the drivers of wealth creation in the past year.
While wealth is often generated by productivity growth, or arises as a reward for bearing investment risks, UBS Chief Economist Paul Donovan says the luck of being in the right place at the right time during structural upheavals can also be a factor.
On a year-by-year basis, foreign exchange rates are the primary driver of the relative performance of different economies. This is because wealth drivers evolve slowly and wealth trends tend to remain stable for long durations.
On other shifts, Donovan added, “Normalizing household debt levels has a bearing on how wealth is modelled, which has shown up this year. The Great Wealth Transfer continues to influence how wealth is allocated, as does the rise of female wealth ownership. Inflation, and to some extent improving living standards, have lifted more people out of the lowest wealth levels.”
The weakness of the U.S. dollar in 2025 has been directly responsible for positive average wealth growth in USD terms ranging from 1.6% in Southeast Asia to almost 4.6% in Greater China, almost 8.8% in North America, nearly 17% in Western Europe, and 28% in Eastern Europe, the report said
Over half of the world’s personal wealth measured in U.S. dollars resides in just two markets: the United States and Greater China. The U.S. is home to 37.5%, Europe to 22%, and Greater China to 18.5% of personal wealth tracked by UBS.
The Americas’ global wealth share has remained broadly stable at 40%.
The number of U.S. millionaires went up in 2025 just like it has for many years, and UBS estimates that the world’s millionaire population went up by 1.5%. This works out to one million new millionaires in 2025 or 2680 new millionaires per day.
“In absolute terms, the United States stands out by virtue of having created over 440,000 new millionaires in 2025, an increase of 1.9% over 2024, or over 1,200 new millionaires per day,” the UBS report said.
Notably, none of the 56 markets included in UBS’ sample closed 2025 with fewer millionaires than they had at the start of the year.
Globally, government debt ratios are below their record highs, even if higher than in the recent past. ” The Great Wealth Transfer is attracting political attention, and governments are likely to seek to mobilize wealth to lower the cost of debt finance,” the report added.
UBS also noted that one consequence of social media is that differences in wealth are now far more visible to the public. As a result, perceptions of inequality have intensified even in places where the actual wealth gap has narrowed. At the same time, when wealth is distributed more widely across society, it is less likely to attract government scrutiny or fuel social unrest.