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What net worth puts you in the top 1% in the US?

Last checked 3 September 2026

The threshold, where it comes from, and the three things it is routinely confused with.

What net worth puts you in the top 1% in the US?

A household net worth of roughly $13,700,000 places you in the wealthiest 1% of the United States, based on the Federal Reserve's 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances as computed by DQYDJ over the published microdata.

GroupNet worth fromDistance from the median
Top 50%$192,900—
Top 10%$1,920,75810× the median
Top 5%$3,779,60020× the median
Top 1%$13,700,00071× the median
Where this number is from, precisely. The Federal Reserve publishes the Survey of Consumer Finances, including its raw microdata. It does not publish this threshold. The figure above comes from DQYDJ’s computation over that microdata, which is a reasonable and widely-used analysis — but “the Fed says the top 1% starts at $13,700,000” is a sentence nobody at the Federal Reserve has written.

Three things this number is not

  • It is not the top 1% by income. Those are different measurements of different things, and the two groups only partly overlap. A household with no salary and a large portfolio can be in one and not the other.
  • It is not current. The survey ran in 2022. The 2025 wave has been collected but is not published until late 2026, so this is the most recent figure available and it is describing a world three years old.
  • It is not international. Wealth thresholds quoted for other countries usually come from bank wealth reports built on a different definition, often per adult rather than per household, and often including or excluding pension wealth differently. They are not comparable to this figure.

Why the top of the distribution is so far away

The gap from the median to the top 10% is about $1,727,858. The gap from the top 10% to the top 1% is about $11,779,242 — more than six times larger, across a tenth as many households.

That shape is the single most useful thing to understand about wealth statistics. It is why the mean is so much higher than the median, why “average net worth” headlines are misleading, and why moving up a percentile near the top takes vastly more than moving up one near the middle.

Frequently asked questions

What net worth puts you in the top 1% in the US?
Approximately $13,700,000 of household net worth, on the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances. This threshold is a third-party computation over the Federal Reserve's public microdata; the Federal Reserve itself publishes medians and means by age rather than percentile cut-offs.
What net worth is the top 10%?
About $1,920,758, and the top 5% starts near $3,779,600. The distance from the top 10% to the top 1% is far larger than the distance from the median to the top 10%, which is what a long right tail looks like in practice.
Is the top 1% by net worth the same as the top 1% by income?
No, and they are frequently confused. Income is what arrives each year; net worth is what has accumulated. The two groups overlap but are not the same people — a retired household can hold top-1% wealth on modest income, and a high earner early in their career may hold very little.
Does the top 1% threshold include home equity?
Yes. The SCF measure is total assets minus total debts, which includes the equity in a primary residence. It excludes the capitalised value of future Social Security and defined-benefit pension entitlements.

Sources

  1. Net Worth Percentile Calculator for the United StatesDerived, not official

    DQYDJ · data for 2022 · published 2023

    A third-party computation over the Federal Reserve's public SCF microdata, not a Federal Reserve publication. The Fed publishes medians and means by age; it does not publish these percentile thresholds directly.

  2. Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2019 to 2022: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances

    Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System · data for 2022 · published October 2023

    The SCF runs every three years. The 2025 wave has been collected but is not published until late 2026, so 2022 remains the current release. SCF net worth excludes the capitalised value of future Social Security and defined-benefit pension entitlements.

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