The world gained close to a million new millionaires last year, as buoyant stock markets and rising asset values swelled the fortunes of those who own shares, property and other investments. That is the headline finding of the latest Global Wealth Report from the Swiss bank UBS — but the report also shows, in the same breath, how narrowly those gains were shared.

A million new millionaires

UBS estimates that the number of U.S.-dollar millionaires worldwide rose by nearly one million in 2025 — more than 2,600 a day — bringing the global total to around 57.5 million, according to the report. Overall personal wealth grew by about 10.8 percent, the fastest pace in several years.

The United States accounted for close to half of the increase, adding more than 440,000 millionaires — over 1,200 a day — and now home to more than 23.6 million of them, or roughly 40 percent of the world's total, as CNBC reported. The growth was broad: UBS said no country in its sample ended the year with fewer millionaires than it began. Britain added more than 43,000, while France, Spain, Japan and India each gained upward of 30,000.

Driven by assets, not wages

The engine of this wealth creation was financial markets rather than pay packets. A strong year for equities, particularly in the United States, lifted the value of stock portfolios and retirement accounts, and much of American household wealth is tied up in financial assets. When markets rise, those holdings rise with them — automatically, and without anyone having to earn a higher salary.

That is precisely why the gains were so concentrated. Wealthier households tend to hold more of their money in shares and property, so a good year for asset prices benefits them most. People whose wealth is mainly their labor — a wage, but little in the way of investments — see comparatively little of the windfall.

The gap beneath the headline

UBS's own figures capture the divide. In the United States, average wealth per adult is far higher than the wealth of the typical, or median, adult — a sign that large fortunes at the top pull the average up well above what most people actually hold. By the report's reckoning, the U.S. ranks near the very top of the world for average wealth but much lower for median wealth.

Globally, too, a large share of adults hold very little: UBS's data show a substantial portion of the world's population with only modest net assets, largely disconnected from the market gains that made headlines. For those households, rising asset prices can even cut the other way, pushing up the cost of housing without adding to their wealth.

Why it matters

The report is a snapshot of a defining feature of the modern economy: that owning assets, more than earning a wage, increasingly determines who gets richer. A rising market is genuinely good news for tens of millions of new and existing millionaires, and for the pension savers whose funds hold shares. But the same numbers show why booming wealth statistics can sit uneasily alongside a widespread sense that living standards are not improving.

UBS suggests global wealth is likely to keep growing, while cautioning that future gains will depend heavily on access to investable assets — a polite way of saying that the divide the report documents is unlikely to close on its own.