TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan has climbed to 15th place worldwide in average adult wealth, ahead of major East Asian rivals.
UBS’s 2025 Global Wealth Report shows global wealth grew 4.6% in 2024, per ETtoday. In Taiwan, average adult wealth reached US$312,075 (NT$9.48 million), placing the country 15th worldwide and ahead of South Korea (20th) and Japan (24th).
According to the data, North America recorded the highest average adult wealth at US$593,000, followed by Oceania at US$497,000 and Western Europe at US$288,000. Switzerland retained the top spot at US$687,000, the US ranked second at US$620,00, and Hong Kong came in third at US$601,000.
Taiwan also performed strongly on median wealth, with adult median assets of US$114,871, ranking 17th globally. That again placed Taiwan ahead of South Korea (20th) and Japan (21st), and second only to Hong Kong in Asia.
The report noted significant regional disparities in wealth growth. The Americas saw an increase of over 11%, boosted by a stable US dollar and strong financial markets.
In contrast, Asia-Pacific growth was under 3%, while Europe, the Middle East, and Africa recorded less than 0.5%. Among the 56 surveyed markets, more than half experienced declines in average adult wealth.
Measured in local currency, Denmark registered the highest rate of real average wealth per adult at nearly 13%. Taiwan’s real average wealth per adult grew by more than 5%.
The US and China hold over half of global personal wealth at 35% and 20%. Taiwan accounts for 1.3% of the world’s personal wealth.
Since 2020, South Korea has seen a 44% increase in average wealth, followed by Norway at 41%. Taiwan recorded the third-highest surge at 35%.
The US leads the world in US dollar millionaires at 24 million, or 39.7% of the world’s total. Taiwan ranked 15th with nearly 760,000 US dollar millionaires.
Brazil has the highest level of wealth inequality with a Gini coefficient of 0.82, where 0 represents perfect equality and 1 represents perfect inequality. Taiwan also has a high level of wealth inequality with a score of 0.60, ranking it 20th.
