The United States has the most millionaires of any country, with about 23.6 million people worth more than US$1 million, followed by China with about 5.3 million and Japan with about 2.9 million, according to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2026. Germany (2.6 million), the United Kingdom (2.4 million) and France (2.4 million) complete the top six. The surprises sit further down: the Netherlands squeezes into the top ten ahead of Italy, Luxembourg and Switzerland have the highest share of millionaires among their residents, and India, Russia and Brazil, three of the world’s largest countries, all miss the top ten.
| Rank | Country | Dollar millionaires (UBS 2026) | Share of population |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 23,627,000 | 6.85% |
| 2 | China | 5,305,000 | 0.38% |
| 3 | Japan | 2,902,000 | 2.37% |
| 4 | Germany | 2,648,000 | 3.21% |
| 5 | United Kingdom | 2,428,000 | 3.51% |
| 6 | France | 2,388,000 | 3.52% |
| 7 | Canada | 2,098,000 | 5.07% |
| 8 | Australia | 1,634,000 | 6.05% |
| 9 | South Korea | 1,317,000 | 2.59% |
| 10 | Netherlands | 1,294,000 | 7.18% |
The Expected Leaders: United States, China and Japan
Nobody following the global economy will be surprised by the top three. The United States holds more dollar millionaires than the next nine countries on the list combined: add China, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Canada, Australia, South Korea and the Netherlands together and you reach roughly 22 million, still short of the American total of 23.6 million. About 6.85% of all Americans, children included, clear the US$1 million mark, which is one of the highest shares anywhere among large countries.
The American lead rests on sheer scale: the world’s largest economy, deep stock markets in which ordinary households hold shares through retirement accounts, and high home values in coastal metropolitan areas. Because UBS measures wealth in US dollars, American households also avoid one distortion that affects every other country on the list: a swing in exchange rates cannot shrink their wealth on paper.
China’s second place is equally unsurprising in absolute terms, but its figure is notable for how small it is relative to the population. The 5.3 million Chinese millionaires amount to only 0.38% of the country’s people, about one in every 260. Japan, third with 2.9 million, reaches 2.37%, a share six times higher than China’s despite an economy that is smaller in total output. Germany, fourth, and the United Kingdom and France, fifth and sixth, are separated by about 260,000 people, close enough that exchange-rate movements alone can reshuffle their order from one report to the next.
Canada, Australia and the Netherlands: Small Populations, Big Counts
The first genuine surprise is how far three mid-sized countries climb. Canada, seventh with 2.1 million millionaires, has fewer people than every country ranked above it, yet it outranks Italy, Spain and South Korea. Just over 5% of Canadians are dollar millionaires.
Australia goes further. Its 1.63 million millionaires make up 6.05% of the population, almost level with the American share, and they put Australia eighth in the world ahead of South Korea, a country with roughly twice as many people. Much of Australian household wealth is held in residential property in Sydney and Melbourne, and in the compulsory retirement savings that Australian workers accumulate over their careers, both of which lift a large number of middle-aged homeowners past the million-dollar line.
The Netherlands is the entry most readers would not guess. With 1.29 million millionaires it takes tenth place and edges out Italy (1.24 million), even though Italy has more than three times as many inhabitants. Measured as a share of the population, 7.18% of the Dutch are millionaires, a higher proportion than in the United States. It is the only country in the top ten with fewer than 20 million inhabitants.
The bottom of the top ten is also where the order changes most. In the 2024 edition of the UBS report, Italy was ninth with about 1.34 million millionaires, South Korea tenth and the Netherlands eleventh. Two years later South Korea had moved up to ninth with 1.32 million, the Netherlands to tenth, and Italy had dropped out to eleventh, a reminder that the gap between ninth and twelfth place is only around 240,000 people.
Switzerland and Luxembourg: Where One Resident in Ten Qualifies
Look at density rather than raw numbers and the ranking flips. Switzerland has 944,000 millionaires, enough only for 13th place, yet they make up 10.12% of the population. Roughly one Swiss resident in ten owns more than US$1 million in net assets. Luxembourg, with just 85,000 millionaires, goes further still: 12.73% of its population, the highest share among the countries UBS lists.
Hong Kong (7.72%) and the Netherlands (7.18%) follow, with the United States (6.85%) and Australia (6.05%) behind them. Singapore, often thought of alongside Hong Kong and Switzerland as a wealth hub, has 244,000 millionaires, or 4.71% of its population, a lower share than Canada’s. At the other end, India’s share is 0.06%, meaning about one person in 1,700. The chart below shows how wide that gap is.
India, Russia and Brazil: The Giants Outside the Top 10
The near-misses are as telling as the leaders. India, the world’s most populous country, has 944,000 millionaires, exactly level with Switzerland for 13th and 14th place. The number is large and has been rising, up from about 869,000 in the 2024 edition of the report, but spread across more than 1.4 billion people it barely registers as a share.
Russia, with 447,000 millionaires, sits 19th, behind Belgium (556,000) and Sweden (507,000), two countries with a combined population of less than a sixth of Russia’s. Just 0.31% of Russians qualify. Brazil, the largest economy in Latin America, is 20th with 386,000, or 0.18% of its population, and Mexico follows two places later with 333,000.
Saudi Arabia, often assumed to be full of millionaires, has 348,000, 21st in the world and under 1% of its population. The United Arab Emirates has 183,000 and Qatar 30,000. Much of the Gulf’s oil wealth is held by the state, in national oil companies and sovereign wealth funds, rather than on household balance sheets, and a large share of residents in these countries are foreign workers.
Italy (1.24 million, 11th) and Spain (1.08 million, 12th) are the European near-misses, both just outside the top ten. Taiwan, 15th with 772,000, is ahead of both Russia and Brazil despite having about 23 million people.
Whole continents fall short of single European countries. Credit Suisse’s 2022 databook put the number of dollar millionaires in all of Africa at about 352,000 and in all of Latin America at about 915,000. Belgium alone now has 556,000, and the Netherlands has more than the whole of Latin America did in that estimate.
Shrinking Counts: The UK, China and Australia Between the 2024 and 2026 Reports
Comparing editions of the report shows how quickly these figures move. In the UBS Global Wealth Report 2024, the United Kingdom was third with about 3.06 million millionaires and France fourth with about 2.87 million. By the 2026 edition the UK had slipped to fifth on 2.43 million and France to sixth on 2.39 million, overtaken by Japan and Germany.
China fell from about 6.01 million to 5.31 million over the same pair of reports, and Australia from about 1.94 million to 1.63 million. Singapore dropped from about 333,000 to 244,000. The United States moved the other way, rising from about 21.95 million to 23.63 million, which widened its lead over everyone else.
These swings come from a mix of real and statistical causes: changes in house prices and stock markets, people moving country, and the exchange rate between local currencies and the US dollar. A household in London or Sydney whose assets are unchanged in pounds or Australian dollars can drop below US$1 million simply because its currency weakened.
How UBS Counts a Dollar Millionaire
All of the figures in this article come from one source, the annual Global Wealth Report now published by UBS. The report was produced by Credit Suisse until UBS agreed, on 19 March 2023, to take over its rival in a deal brokered by the Swiss government. Credit Suisse’s 2022 databook estimated about 62.5 million millionaires worldwide, of whom about 26.8 million lived in North America and 16.7 million in Europe.
A millionaire here means a person whose net worth, that is, financial assets plus property minus debts, exceeds US$1 million. Income does not count, so a doctor earning a high salary but carrying a large mortgage may not qualify, while a retired farmer owning valuable land may. Wealth is estimated for households from national balance sheets and surveys, then modelled across the population, so figures for countries with weaker statistics are less precise.
That definition explains most of the surprises above. Countries where many ordinary households own expensive homes and hold large pension savings, such as Australia, the Netherlands and Switzerland, produce more millionaires per head than much larger economies where wealth is either lower on average or held by a narrow group. For the related comparison of income per person rather than wealth, see our list of countries with the highest GDP per capita, and for the size of whole economies, our ranking of the richest countries in the world.