Europe’s Millionaire Count Falls as Wealth Concentrates at the Very Top

Europe’s Shrinking Millionaire Club and Why It Matters in Portugal

A new edition of Capgemini’s World Wealth Report shows that Europe produced fewer millionaires in 2024 even as global wealth kept climbing. The continent’s tally of high-net-worth individuals fell by roughly two percent, echoing a year of economic standstill in its largest economies and setting Europe apart from the brisk gains enjoyed in North America and parts of Asia. The study, now in its twenty-ninth year, counts anyone with investable assets above USD 1 million—excluding primary homes—as a high-net-worth individual (HNWI).

The numbers behind the headline

Worldwide, the HNWI population inched up 2.6 percent last year, thanks largely to a buoyant United States stock market that capitalised on the artificial-intelligence boom. Ultra-rich households—those worth at least USD 30 million—expanded even faster, jumping 6.2 percent and underscoring an ongoing concentration of wealth at the very top. In the United States alone, the report logged about 562,000 new millionaires, a 7.6 percent surge that lifted the country’s total to 7.9 million. India and Japan each added just over five percent to their millionaire counts, while China slipped one percent amid slower growth and property-sector strains.

Europe went the other way. Capgemini attributes the two percent drop to flat GDP readings in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom—economies that together lost more than 75,000 millionaires. Yet the number of European ultra-rich still grew 3.5 percent, evidence that fortunes are consolidating in fewer hands. Other regions also stumbled: Latin America’s HNWI base contracted 8.5 percent as weak currencies punished portfolio values, and the Middle East fell just over two percent on softer oil prices.

Reading the data from a Portuguese vantage point

Portugal does not receive a line item in the Capgemini tables, but complementary research from Credit Suisse suggests the country hosted about 122,000 millionaires in 2023—a small slide from the previous year that tracks the broader European pattern. Local wealth advisers cite three obvious headwinds: slower housing-price growth after tighter mortgage rules, the government’s decision to retire the popular Non-Habitual Resident tax regime for new applicants, and the closure of the real-estate pathway of the Golden Visa programme in late 2023. For foreign professionals and retirees relocating to Lisbon, Porto, or the Algarve, the upshot is twofold. Property is no longer the one-way bet it seemed during the pandemic boom, yet Portugal still offers relatively affordable prices by Western European standards and an expanding menu of residency routes tied to job creation, research, or cultural investment.

A looming USD 83 trillion handover

Capgemini devotes a large slice of its report to demographics. Over the next two decades, the firm expects roughly USD 83.5 trillion to move from today’s wealth holders to their heirs, with nearly one-third of that shift happening by 2030. Eighty-one percent of heirs surveyed said they plan to change wealth managers within the first two years of receiving an inheritance—a stark warning for private banks operating in Portugal’s competitive market for expatriate clients. Local advisers are already adding cryptocurrency custody, direct private-equity access, and impact-investing screens to keep younger investors onside.

Risk appetite is rising among the young and rich

Alternative assets now account for about fifteen percent of the average millionaire’s portfolio, and the share climbs sharply among Generations Z and Millennials. Sixty-one percent of those younger investors told Capgemini they prioritise high-growth, niche opportunities such as early-stage private equity, digital tokens, and specialised thematic funds. That tilt helps explain why, despite Europe’s shrinking millionaire base, the region’s asset-management industry continues to report record inflows into funds that marry sustainability themes with frontier-technology plays, many of which are headquartered in Portugal’s thriving start-up hubs.

What comes next

Economists at Lisbon-based think tank ISEG expect European growth to tick higher later this year as the European Central Bank eases borrowing costs—a move that could stabilise wealth numbers in Portugal and its neighbours. Still, the 2024 setback serves as a reminder that Europe’s fortunes are no longer automatically linked to Wall Street’s. For expatriates who have built, or are building, wealth in Portugal, the lesson is straightforward: geographic diversification, a willingness to embrace new asset classes, and a forward-looking plan for inter-generational transfers are becoming as important as the country you choose to call home.