Inheritance Boom: The $6T Windfall Reshaping Wealth In 2025

A massive $6 trillion inheritance wave is sweeping across developed nations this year, altering wealth dynamics and economic mobility.

The Economist reported recently that inheritances now account for roughly 10% of GDP across wealthy countries, with some nations seeing figures as high as 15%. It marks a resurgence of inheritance as a wealth pathway after its significance declined throughout much of the 20th century.

The 2024 Billionaire Ambitions Report from UBS, a multinational investment bank, suggests that 53 people became billionaires in 2023 simply by inheriting money, approaching the 84 who achieved that status through work.

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The trend has been more pronounced in Europe. The Economist noted that French inheritances have doubled as a share of national output since the 1960s, while Germany’s have nearly tripled since the 1970s. In the U.K, inheritances are twice as important relative to earnings for those born in the 1980s compared with the previous generation.

In the U.S. for every $100 employers pay in wages annually, the deceased leave behind $20 in assets to heirs. Italy leads wealthy nations with inheritances exceeding 15% of GDP. Only Ireland appears resistant to the trend, maintaining modest inheritance levels.

Three areas drive the inheritance surge—growing wealth concentration, demographic shifts and slower economic growth.

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Total wealth has expanded in recent decades, particularly in real estate. British building values jumped from roughly 1 trillion pounds ($1.28 trillion)—130% of GDP—in the mid-1990s to nearly 7 trillion pounds ($9.01 trillion)—270% of GDP—in recent years.

Simultaneously, favorable conditions for asset growth emerged through reduced wealth taxes, strong stock market performance and—until recently—low inflation.

The demographic piece centers on baby boomers, who accumulated substantial assets during decades of economic expansion. Germans over 65, representing one-fifth of the population, control one-third of national wealth, according to The Economist. American boomers, also about 20% of the population, own half the country’s net wealth—roughly $82 trillion. As the generation passes away, their substantial estates transfer to heirs.

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Economic stagnation completes the picture. Countries with the slowest GDP growth, like Germany and Italy, show stronger inheritance trends than faster-growing economies like the U.S. and Ireland.

The shift toward inheritance-based wealth carries economic implications. A 2021 analysis by the Penn Wharton Budget Model at the University of Pennsylvania found that Americans in the top 5% of earners received an average inheritance of $51,499, compared to $5,000 for those in the middle-income bracket. 

According to a research paper cited by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, about 26% of the wealth gap between Black and White Americans stems from intergenerational wealth transfers.

The wealth transfer wave shows no signs of slowing. According to The Economist’s projections, American baby boomer deaths will peak in 2036 with 1.5 million passings annually. With asset values likely to appreciate further and inheritance taxes continuing to decline in many jurisdictions, the next decade could cement an enduring inheritor class across wealthy nations.

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