What is a High Net Worth Individual?
A high net worth individual is a person with large personal financial holdings. Traditionally the term used was millionaire, but in recent years the term high net worth individual has become the descriptor of choice. A high net worth individual has financial assets worth more than US$1 million. High net worth is used to describe financial assets, discounting real-estate. This makes a large difference in the number of people who may be classed as high net worth individuals: in 2003 there were nearly 2.2 million people in the United States who would be classified as having high net worth, while over 7.9 million people had assets including real estate worth in excess of a million dollars. In addition to the category of high net worth individuals (HNWIs), there is a second category, called ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWIs), comprised of people with financial assets in excess of US$30 million. In the global population, this second category makes up approximately 1% of the total high
