The New York Stock Exchange on April 14, 2025.
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A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide for wealthy investors and consumers. Register to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
Nearly a million people will become millionaires in 2025, largely thanks to a thriving stock market, according to a new report from UBS.
The Swiss bank estimates that the United States is responsible for nearly half of these new millionaires, adding on average more than 1,200 new millionaires per day last year, an annual gain of about 441,000.
Stock market gains increased global personal wealth by 10.8%, the largest increase since 2017 and more than double the rate of 2024 and 2023, according to UBS. However, this robust growth was contradicted by falling median wealth in most of the 56 markets tracked by UBS, reflecting a growing wealth gap.
In the United States, for example, median wealth per adult declined by almost 20% between 2020 and 2025, while average wealth increased by about 10% over the same period, net of inflation, according to the bank’s data analysis.
UBS estimates that the world’s millionaire population, which the bank estimates at 58 million, owns nearly half of the world’s wealth, or about $250.6 trillion.
UBS economist James Mazeau told CNBC that wealthier individuals made larger gains than the general population last year because they are more exposed to financial markets, noting that the U.S. stock market is up about 18% in 2025.
“The higher you go in the wealth brackets, the more wealth creation will tend to be tied to either the performance of your business or your investment portfolio, or both,” Mazeau said at a news conference.
These gains are also uneven among the ranks of millionaires. The bank estimates that the combined assets of so-called “ordinary millionaires,” that is, individuals worth between $1 million and $5 million, have jumped 170%, excluding inflation, since 2000. During the same period, the collective wealth of the richest peers has soared 343%.
As for the world’s billionaires, their collective net worth jumped nearly 25% in the year ending in April, according to UBS. However, the report notes that much of this increase was due to an increase in the number of billionaires, not just the enrichment of members of the three-comma club.
The depreciation of the US dollar last year also contributed to gaps in global wealth creation, with the bank measuring wealth in terms of US dollars. The U.S. millionaire population, while still the largest in the world, grew by a modest 1.9% in 2025, while most markets in Europe and the Middle East saw higher percentage gains, including Turkey (6.4%) and the United Arab Emirates (3.5%). In terms of combined personal wealth, the Americas’ growth rate was estimated at 8.5%, outpacing the Asia-Pacific region at 5.9%, but less than half the 17.5% rate seen in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Mazeau said it was too early to predict what impact the war in Iran would have on wealthy individuals in the Middle East. Asset allocation and currency movements are two of the many factors that will determine the outcome.
“It’s really going to depend on how much of the international assets those investors own. If you’re, say, based in the Middle East and most of your wealth is tied up in U.S. stocks and, on top of that, you have a currency pegged to the U.S. dollar, well, currency movements really don’t matter,” he said. “Now, if you tend to diversify your holdings into other investments that tend to be in currencies that have appreciated against the U.S. dollar, and if we measure things in U.S. dollars, then, for 2026, the outlook will be a little better.”
He added that investors may have changed their portfolios as a result of the conflict.
“Are they going to diversify their holdings? Are they going to invest more directly in the United States? How is the situation that has arisen going to change the investment landscape, investment philosophy and asset allocation? ” he said. “I don’t know yet.”