The country is home to the largest collection of millionaires on the planet, and leads the way as a wealth management hub. And yet a variety of forces are encouraging a number of HNW to move abroad, the authors of this study say.

New figures show that the US accounts for 32 per cent – $67 trillion – of global liquid investible wealth and is home to 37 per cent of the world’s millionaires.

Figures from the 2024 USA Wealth Report, issued by migration solutions advisory firm Henley & Partners, show that 5.5 million high net worth individuals hold more than $1 million in liquid investible assets. That number of HNW individuals has risen 62 per cent over the past decade, ahead of the worldwide growth rate of 38 per cent.

Such reports shed light on why, for all the concerns about the relative shift in the center of economic and financial power to Asia in recent years, the US remains the world’s single-biggest wealth management market. 

The US is ahead of rivals such as China when it comes to liquid wealth (which for the purpose of this report only includes listed company holdings, cash holdings, and debt-free residential property holdings). Likewise, wealth per capita and the number of millionaires, centi-millionaires, and billionaires are all substantially higher in the US. The country boasts 9,850 centi-millionaires versus China’s 2,352, and 788 billionaires versus China’s 305. While just over 862,000 millionaires live in China, its wealth per capita is only $18,800 compared with $201,500 in the US, which ranks sixth globally after Monaco, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Australia, and Singapore when it comes to this measure.

While the US may be home to more millionaires, it seems that domestic politics, culture and other concerns mean that many of them aren’t happy and are looking to move.

“US nationals are our firm’s single biggest cohort of applicants for investment migration programs right now and they also outnumbered every other nationality last year,” Mehdi Kadiri, head of North America at Henley & Partners, said. “With political divisions and societal tensions at an all-time high, American investors, entrepreneurs, and wealthy families are increasingly hedging their bets and pursuing backup citizenship or residence abroad, signaling declining faith in the domestic outlook.”

New York City continues to wear the crown as the wealthiest city in the US (and the world) with 349,500 millionaires calling the city home (of which 744 are centi-millionaires and 60 are billionaires), followed by the Bay Area (305,700), Los Angeles (212,100), Chicago (120,500), and Houston (90,900). Dallas (68,600), Seattle (54,200), Boston (42,900), Miami (35,300), and Austin (32,700) all make it into this year’s Top 10, with Washington, DC in 11th place with 28,300 resident millionaires.

Looking at wealth growth over the past decade, thanks to its tech boom, Texas’s capital Austin has enjoyed the biggest leap, with a 110 per cent increase in its millionaire population between 2013 and 2023. 

The Arizona desert city of Scottsdale and Florida’s Palm Beach and West Palm Beach have also proved to be millionaire magnets with increases of 102 per cent and 93 per cent, respectively, in their HNWI residents over the last 10 years. Greenwich and Darien on Connecticut’s affluent Gold Coast, and Northern California’s Bay Area, have sported wealth growth of over 80 per cent, and Miami, Dallas, Washington DC, Seattle, and Houston have all seen their millionaire resident cohorts surge by over 70 per cent. 

Henley & Partners issued the report in partnership with New World Wealth.