US household wealth grows more liquid than global peers

Liquid holdings now make up nearly half of Americans' net worth, the largest share among eight major economies across the world.

That's according to the latest global wealth report from UBS, which found liquid assets made up 47% of aggregate US household net wealth last year. 

That figure has climbed from 29% in 2011, highlighting how American fortunes are less locked into real estate, with more sitting in cash, brokerage accounts and fund shares that can be moved or spent on short notice.

The finding is a national aggregate, not a per-household median, which the UBS report cautioned can be skewed by wealthier households whose portfolios lean more heavily on securities and funds.

Where the United States stands among peers

The UBS report, which focused more on the rising ranks of milionaires across the world, noted that property still made up the lion's share of people's wealth.

"Owner-occupied property represents the single biggest asset for most people with wealth up to everyday millionaire level (i.e. USD 1–5 million)," the authors of the UBS global wealth report wrote. "In other words, rising property valuations propel many people into millionaire status without any actual increase in their disposable income."

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UBS defines liquid assets as cash, deposits, voluntary pension savings, collective investment schemes and direct securities holdings, while treating real estate, life insurance and mandatory pension entitlements as illiquid. By that measure, the United States leads a group of wealthy economies where liquidity has been rising broadly, but unevenly.

Switzerland's liquid share reached 45% in 2025, up from 29% in 2011. Luxembourg climbed to 44% from 26%, and Singapore to 38% from 25%. Australia rose to 40% from 25% over the same period. The United Kingdom reached 38% from 24%, while Germany and Italy lagged furthest behind, at 30% and 27% respectively, up from 24% and 23% in 2011.

UBS attributes the US lead largely to investments in equities and mutual funds, a pattern the bank says has strengthened steadily as homeownership rates plateaued and household portfolios tilted further toward securities.

"It’s mainly thanks to direct holdings of equities and investments in mutual funds that in the United States almost half of net wealth is liquid," the UBS report said. "In Australia, liquid assets command a similarly high proportion of total net wealth."

Mutual funds' expanding role in household wealth

The liquidity shift tracks closely with how Americans have been building wealth in the first place. Mutual funds managed 23.6% of US household financial assets at the end of 2024, according to the Investment Company Institute's Investment Company Fact Book, up from 22.6% a year earlier and part of a longer climb driven largely by retirement accounts.

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ICI's data found that 53.9% of US households, representing 72.7 million households, owned mutual funds last year, with a median household income of $125,000 among fund owners.

Nearly two-thirds of mutual fund-owning households held more than half of their financial assets in funds, and 73% owned funds through an employer-sponsored retirement plan, rising to 84% among households younger than 50.

The share of middle-income households owning mutual funds rose to 57% in 2025 from 43% in 2005, ICI found, suggesting the liquidity gains UBS documented are not confined to the ultra-affluent, even if they are amplified at the top of the wealth pyramid.