A net worth percentile tells you what share of families your age you are ahead of. In the Federal Reserve’s 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the 50th percentile — the median — is $215,900 across all ages; the 75th percentile is about $813,000, the 90th about $2,538,500, the 95th about $4,937,400, and the top 1% starts at about $16,269,700. By age, the bar rises steeply: the 90th percentile is $351,200 for families under 35 but $4,188,300 at 75 and older, and the top 1% threshold climbs from about $1.59 million under 35 to about $20.5 million at 65–74. The full table is below — first, one honest warning about how percentile tables are made, because it decides how much trust each row deserves.
Where these percentile figures come from
The Federal Reserve publishes the median and the mean by age in its bulletin Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2022 to 2025 — those are the figures used in average net worth by age. It does not publish a full percentile ladder by age. Every percentile table for the SCF, including this one, is therefore a calculation from the survey’s public microdata — the same underlying interviews, weighted to represent the U.S. population — performed by an analyst rather than printed by the Fed.
The table below uses one consistent calculation throughout: an analysis of the SCF 2025 public microdata (4,360 families in the public file, survey weights applied, figures in 2025 survey dollars), as published by Efficient Dollar’s net worth percentile calculator and cross-checked against a second, independent calculation of the same microdata, which agreed to within about $100 on every cell used here. The SCF programme page is where the Fed itself posts the bulletin, the public dataset and the method documents behind both kinds of figure. Independent calculators working from the same microdata agree closely at the 50th, 75th and 90th percentiles and less closely at the 95th and 99th, where each age band contains only a handful of very wealthy families. Read the top rows as “around this amount,” not as exact cut-offs.
Because these are microdata calculations, the 50th-percentile column differs very slightly from the Fed’s published bulletin medians — $32,820 here versus $33,000 published for the under-35 group, for example, a gap of under $600 in every band. The method (pooling the survey’s five imputed data copies rather than averaging them separately) explains the difference. The percentile thresholds are unaffected in any way that matters.
Net worth percentile thresholds by age
Each cell is the net worth at that percentile for the age group: a family exactly at the 75th percentile for its age has more net worth than 75% of families in that group. Age is the age of the family’s reference person. Figures in 2025 dollars.
| Age | 50th (median) | 75th | 90th | 95th | 99th (top 1%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 35 | $32,820 | $145,090 | $351,200 | $476,501 | $1,591,230 |
| 35–44 | $156,000 | $467,520 | $1,233,620 | $2,382,520 | $8,346,100 |
| 45–54 | $254,670 | $941,970 | $2,557,390 | $5,219,000 | $14,050,600 |
| 55–64 | $411,340 | $1,416,200 | $3,457,640 | $7,545,000 | $20,072,200 |
| 65–74 | $431,900 | $1,312,100 | $3,656,000 | $7,301,050 | $20,499,000 |
| 75 and older | $504,600 | $1,417,000 | $4,188,260 | $6,849,500 | $20,337,060 |
| All ages | $216,100 | $813,000 | $2,538,520 | $4,937,390 | $16,269,700 |
Source: calculated from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances 2025 public microdata (released October 9, 2026), as published by Efficient Dollar and cross-checked against an independent microdata calculation (Wealthvieu) agreeing within ~$100 per cell; 50th-percentile column is the microdata median, within $600 of the Fed’s published bulletin median in every band. Survey year 2025; checked November 2026. The Fed itself publishes only the median and mean by age.
Read the table by gaps, not just levels. Under 35, moving from the median to the 75th percentile means roughly quadrupling your net worth ($32,820 to $145,090); at 55–64 it means more than tripling ($411,340 to $1,416,200). The 25th percentile — a quarter of families below it — sits far lower: $3,100 under 35, $18,000 at 35–44, $54,730 at 45–54, $71,790 at 55–64, $118,105 at 65–74 and $144,060 at 75 and older (same microdata calculation). And at the very bottom, the 10th percentile under 35 is negative — about −$11,700 — meaning at least one in ten young families owes more than it owns, mostly because of student loans and early mortgages. If that is you, you are not an outlier; you are a documented slice of the distribution.
Top 1% net worth by age
The top 1% — the 99th percentile — deserves its own table, because it is the threshold people ask about most and the one where survey data is thinnest.
| Age | Net worth needed for the top 1% |
|---|---|
| Under 35 | $1,591,230 |
| 35–44 | $8,346,100 |
| 45–54 | $14,050,600 |
| 55–64 | $20,072,200 |
| 65–74 | $20,499,000 |
| 75 and older | $20,337,060 |
| All ages | $16,269,700 |
Source: same SCF 2025 public-microdata calculation as the main table above (Efficient Dollar, cross-checked); 2025 dollars, checked November 2026.
Three cautions belong with this table. First, the all-ages threshold is not the average of the age thresholds — it is the 99th percentile of all families pooled together, which is why it sits below the older bands’ thresholds. Second, the jump with age is real but the plateau is too: the threshold climbs steeply to about age 55 and then roughly levels off around $20 million, because the very wealthiest families’ fortunes stop depending much on the reference person’s age. Third, treat every cell as approximate. At the 99th percentile, an age band’s threshold rests on a small number of sampled families. A second well-known analysis of the same SCF 2025 microdata, by DQYDJ, puts the all-ages top 1% threshold at $16,463,320 — about 1% above the figure above — and DQYDJ itself warns readers to read its top-1% chart as “the top 1% is around this amount.” DQYDJ’s finer five-year bands tell the same story in more detail: $738,994 at ages 25–29, $2,560,000 at 30–34, rising to $22,030,640 at 65–69. Two careful analysts, one dataset, answers within a percent or two of each other — that spread is the honest precision of a top-1% threshold from a survey of 4,367 families. Anyone quoting you a top-1% figure to the dollar, without naming a source and a survey year, is quoting false precision.
How to find roughly where you stand
- Calculate your own net worth first, the survey’s way: everything you own at current value — home, accounts, investments, vehicles — minus everything you owe. How net worth is calculated walks through what counts and what does not; the most common error is leaving the mortgage off the debt side while counting the full home value on the asset side.
- Pick your band by the reference person’s age — for a couple, the main earner’s age, using the same six bands as the table.
- Find the two thresholds your number sits between. Between the 50th and 75th? You are somewhere in the second quartile from the top — ahead of at least half, and at most three-quarters, of families your age. That bracket is as precise as the data honestly supports; interpolating to a single percentile (“you are at the 63rd percentile”) manufactures accuracy the survey does not contain.
- Compare like with like. The survey counts families, includes home equity, and excludes defined-benefit pensions and future Social Security. If your wealth is mostly a pension promise rather than account balances, your survey-style rank understates your real position.
Percentile, median and average: three different rulers
These three statistics are often used as if they were interchangeable. They are not:
- The average (mean) for all families is $1,241,500 (Federal Reserve bulletin, SCF 2025). It describes the total wealth in the country divided by the number of families — a figure dominated by the top 1%, and higher than the net worth of the large majority of families.
- The median (50th percentile) is $215,900 on the Fed’s published figures. Half of families are above it, half below. It is the one percentile the Fed publishes itself, by age, and the safest single benchmark.
- A percentile threshold answers a positional question: “what does it take to be ahead of X% of families my age?” That is the question the tables above answer — and why a percentile is more informative than an average for personal comparison. Being “above average” sounds strong and means little, since the average sits somewhere around the 70th–75th percentile of the actual distribution: most families are below it.
The practical consequence: a family at the 75th percentile for its age is doing better than “average” in the everyday sense of the word, even though its net worth is below the mean. Anyone who tells you that you are behind because you have less than the $1.24 million average has confused the mean with the typical — the error average net worth by age exists to correct.
Frequently asked questions
What net worth puts you in the top 10% for your age? The 90th percentile: $351,200 under 35; $1,233,620 at 35–44; $2,557,390 at 45–54; $3,457,640 at 55–64; $3,656,000 at 65–74; $4,188,260 at 75 and older; $2,538,520 across all ages (SCF 2025 public microdata calculation, 2025 dollars).
What percentile is a $1 million net worth? It depends entirely on age, which is the point of the table. Read by brackets: under 35, $1 million sits between the 95th percentile ($476,501) and the top 1% ($1,591,230). At 35–44 it sits between the 75th ($467,520) and the 90th ($1,233,620). At 45–54 it is just above the 75th percentile ($941,970). At 55 and older it falls between the median and the 75th percentile — still ahead of most families your age, but no longer rare air. Across all ages pooled, $1 million sits between the 75th ($813,000) and the 90th ($2,538,520) percentiles.
What is the top 1% net worth overall? About $16.27 million across all ages in the calculation used here; a second analysis of the same SCF 2025 microdata (DQYDJ) puts it at about $16.46 million. Read it as “roughly $16–16.5 million,” not as an exact line.
Why do different websites give different percentile numbers? Three reasons: they may still be using the previous survey (SCF 2022, median $192,900 — now superseded); they may use five-year age bands instead of the Fed’s six bands, which changes every cell; and at the top percentiles, different microdata calculations genuinely differ by a percent or two. Any table that does not state its survey year and its calculator should not be trusted.
Does the percentile table include my house? Yes. These figures count net worth the SCF way — the home at full current value on the asset side and the remaining mortgage on the debt side, so home equity is included. Excluding home equity, the all-ages median falls from about $216,100 to about $69,200 in the same microdata calculation — for the typical family, the house is most of the wealth.
This article is general information, not personal financial advice. Percentile thresholds are calculations from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances 2025 public microdata (fielded 2025, released October 9, 2026), in 2025 dollars, checked November 2026; the Federal Reserve publishes the median and mean, not the full percentile ladder. Top-percentile figures rest on small samples and should be read as approximations.