Portugal: Rich get richer, rest are getting poorer

Portugal gained 6,000 new ‘dollar millionaires’ in 2025, but the country’s median adult has become poorer since the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the latest Global Wealth Report 2026 published by Swiss bank UBS.

The report paints a picture of growing wealth inequality, with gains increasingly concentrated among the richest households despite overall increases in national wealth.

Between 2020 and 2025, Portugal’s average wealth per adult rose by around 7%, driven largely by the appreciation of assets held by the wealthiest individuals. Over the same period, however, median wealth—considered a more accurate measure of the financial position of the typical citizen—fell by 4.4%.

UBS said the trend is not limited to Portugal, it is happening across much of the world.

“While average wealth has risen markedly, median wealth has declined in most markets, revealing a widening gap between the wealthiest individuals and the general population,” says the text.

The distinction is significant because average wealth can be heavily distorted by a relatively small number of extremely wealthy people.

“A small group of particularly rich individuals can easily inflate a nation’s average wealth, making its population appear wealthier than it really is,” UBS warns.

According to the report, Portugal now has 181,000 dollar millionaires – up from 175,000 a year earlier. The increase of 6,000 is almost double the rise recorded between 2023 and 2024 and broadly matches global growth.

Even so, Portugal remains near the bottom of the UBS ranking of 30 advanced economies for millionaire density. Just 2.1% of Portuguese adults qualify as millionaires, together holding a combined wealth of around US$451.5 billion.

Neighbouring Spain has more than one million dollar millionaires.

Portugal also ranks 26th out of the 30 economies surveyed for both average and median wealth – remaining well below the Western European average and behind Spain.

Property-rich, cash-poor

UBS says Portugal’s wealth profile helps explain why average wealth has continued to rise while median wealth has weakened.

Only 37% of Portuguese household gross wealth is held in financial assets such as shares and investment funds. The remainder is concentrated primarily in residential property, one of the lowest proportions of financial wealth among the countries surveyed and comparable with Spain and Greece.

By contrast, almost 79% of household wealth in the United States is invested in financial assets.

The report notes that rising property prices have pushed many homeowners into millionaire status without actually increasing their disposable income.

“For most people, the owner-occupied home represents their single largest asset,” UBS said, adding that higher house prices increase paper wealth, but do not generate liquidity unless the property is sold (and then there is the question of ‘taxes payable’, and, very often, ‘where to live/ buy next?’).

Portugal’s relatively low household debt—equivalent to 11.4% of gross wealth—also reflects the traditionally conservative borrowing habits of Portuguese families.

UBS concludes that future wealth growth will increasingly depend on access to financial investments and the ability to diversify beyond property.

Global wealth surges

Globally, personal wealth expanded by 10.8% in 2025, the fastest annual increase since 2017 and the third consecutive year of growth.

The strongest gains were recorded across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, where wealth rose by 17.5%, followed by the Americas (8.5%) and Asia-Pacific (5.9%).

The report also found that wealth growth became increasingly concentrated at the top of the distribution: individuals with assets exceeding US$5 million recorded some of the strongest gains, particularly in China, Australia and the United States.

UBS estimates that just 1.5% of the world’s population now controls almost half of global household wealth, underlining the increasingly unequal distribution of assets despite another year of robust ‘global wealth creation’.

Source: Expresso