New UBS report reveals a persistent wealth divide between Canada and its southern neighbour, even as global millionaires hit record numbers
Canada may be among the world’s most prosperous nations, but when it comes to what the average person actually has in their pocket or their property Canadians are still playing catch-up with Americans by a wide margin.
That’s the key takeaway from the 2026 Global Wealth Report released by Swiss banking giant UBS, which places Canada 13th on the global wealth ladder. The average Canadian adult holds personal wealth of approximately US$399,886 or just over $567,000 in Canadian dollars. It sounds impressive until you compare it to the American figure: US$696,277 per adult, good enough for second place worldwide.
Both countries, however, trail Switzerland, which once again sits comfortably at the top of the rankings with an average adult wealth of US$910,382.
The UBS report measures wealth across 56 markets covering more than 92 percent of global wealth by tallying financial and non-financial assets including real estate, then subtracting debts. It’s one of the most comprehensive snapshots of how personal wealth is distributed around the world.
The headline number from this year’s report is striking: global personal wealth surged by 10.8 percent in 2025. Yet that prosperity is anything but evenly spread. Just 1.5 percent of the world’s population holds assets exceeding US$1 million, while 42 percent of people nearly half the globe have less than US$10,000 to their name.
The report also recorded a historic milestone: nearly one million new millionaires were minted worldwide in 2025, a record high across every market UBS tracks. The United States alone drove almost half of that growth, producing more than 1,200 new millionaires every single day last year. Eastern Europe posted the strongest percentage growth, while Asia-Pacific and Western Europe also saw notable gains.
North America remains the wealthiest region on earth largely on the strength of the United States, which accounts for 35.7 percent of all personal wealth tracked in the report. Oceania came in second, propelled by Australia, where the average adult holds US$616,306 in wealth, placing it fifth globally.
The report authors noted that a striking divide continues to separate the world’s wealthiest regions from the rest: “This divide remains firmly in place, especially if we look at the United States and Australia individually,” they wrote, referring to the gap between nations above and below the half-million-dollar mark.
For Canadians, the 13th-place ranking is a mixed result. On one hand, it puts Canada well above the Western European regional average of US$337,083 per adult. On the other, seven European nations rank higher: Switzerland (1st), Luxembourg (3rd), Denmark (7th), Norway (9th), the Netherlands (10th), Belgium (11th), and Sweden (12th).
Canada also ranks below Hong Kong (4th), Australia (5th), Singapore (6th), and New Zealand (8th) a reminder that wealth, in global terms, doesn’t necessarily follow the size of an economy.
The gap between Canada and the United States, in particular, reflects longstanding structural differences in investment culture, equity markets, and homeownership patterns factors that the UBS methodology captures through its broad asset-based approach.
For Canadians watching these numbers, the takeaway is clear: the country is wealthy by global standards, but the distance to the top of the table is still substantial and growing.
