Millionaire

A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. Depending on the currency, a certain level of prestige is associated with being a millionaire. Many national currencies have, or have had at various times, a low unit value, in many cases due to past inflation. It is much easier and less significant to be a millionaire in those currencies, thus a millionaire in the local currency of Hong Kong or Taiwan, for example, may be merely of average wealth, or perhaps less wealthy than average. A millionaire in Zimbabwe in 2007 could have been extremely poor. Because of this, the term 'millionaire' generally refers to those whose assets total at least one million units of a high-value currency, such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling.

At the end of 2011, there were around 5.1 million HNWIs in the United States, while at the same time there were 11 million millionaires in a total of 3.5 million millionaire households, including those 5.1 million HNWIs. As of December 2024, there were estimated to be just over 16 million dollar-millionaires in the world according to the World's Wealthiest Cities Report 2025 by Henley & Partners. The United States had the highest number of millionaires (6.0 million) of any country, whilst New York is the wealthiest city with 385,000 millionaires. In countries that use the short scale number naming system, a billionaire is someone who has at least a thousand times a million dollars, euros or pounds.