Wealth and Inheritance in 21st-Century Switzerland

Executive Summary

The research  provides a comprehensive account of private wealth, inheritance and inter-vivos giving in Switzerland over the last 25 years. The analysis draws on published aggregate data and on 16.7 million tax records for the cantons of Bern and Lucerne.

1. Wealth is growing faster than incomes. Switzerland’s private wealth has been growing faster than output and incomes. In 2025, bequeathable wealth stood at some CHF 3,600bn, the equivalent of 4.2 times GDP, up from CHF 1,400bn in 2000, which corresponded to 2.9 times GDP. Over the first quarter of this century, wealth has grown annually by 3.9% on average, while GPD and incomes grew by 2.6%.

2. Inheritance is growing along with wealth. The annual volume of bequests—the sum of inheritance and inter-vivos gifts—has grown together with wealth of the living, increasing from CHF 32bn in 2000 (6.7% of GDP) to CHF 100bn in 2025 (11.6% of GDP). Hence, the economic weight of bequests has almost doubled since the start of the century.

3. Wealth inequality is high and rising. Private wealth is highly concentrated. The nationwide top-1% taxable wealth share increased from 36.6% in 2003 to 45.1% in 2022. In Lucerne, the top 1% held 46.3% of taxable wealth in 2021, up from 40% in the early 2000s. In Bern, the top 1% share rose from 29.9% to 38.3% over 2002–2021. Nationwide, millionaires (taxable wealth ≥ CHF 1m) represent 7% of taxpayers but own some 71% of total wealth.

4. Retirees are wealthier than working-age households. Median wealth of households aged over 65 is nearly ten times larger than that of households aged under 65. For the average working-age household in Bern, taxable wealth represents about 90% of annual income. In contrast, the average retirement-age household declares wealth that is worth some 550% of annual income.

5. Most retirees dissave less than a third of their retirement-age wealth. Mean wealth drops only about 15% between retirement and death; median wealth drops about 30%. If inter-vivos gifts are excluded from measures of decumulation, mean wealth continues to rise until the end of life.

6. Inheritances are less unequal than wealth among the living. The top 1% of inheritances account for 31.4% of total inherited wealth, which is less than the top-1% wealth share among the living. As a consequence, inheritance reduces the Gini index of wealth inequality at the moment of transmission. However, research for other high-income countries shows that inheritances above the 95th percentile tend to increase wealth inequality. In Switzerland, that threshold lies at around CHF 500,000.

7. Inheritances arrive ever later. This century, the median age of inheritance receipt has risen from 56 to 60. Swiss people are now more likely to inherit between ages 61 and 65 than over their entire life up to age 45.

8. Inter-vivos gifts are becoming more frequent but smaller. On average, for every CHF 100 transferred at death, some CHF 50 have already been given during life. Hence, intervivos gifts represent around one-third of all intergenerational transfers. This share has remained roughly constant, as gifts are becoming more common but average amounts have fallen. Gifts are similarly concentrated as inheritances: the top-1% largest gifts account for some 31.1% of the total.

9. The average ages of receiving and making gifts have not changed. In contrast to the rising age of inheritance receipt, the median age of gift receipt has remained roughly constant at 42, and the median age of making a gift has remained at 71.

10. Most bequests are from parents to children. In value terms, about 73% of inheritances and 93% of gifts go to direct descendants.

11. Effective tax rates on wealth and inheritances have fallen. The average effective wealth tax rate declined from 0.35% in 1990 to 0.28% in 2025. The average effective inheritance and gift tax rate fell from 4.6% in 1990 to 1.5% in 2025, mainly because cantons abolished bequest taxes for direct descendants.

12. Real-estate wealth is underreported in tax data. Fiscal valuations of real estate are systematically below market values—falling to an estimated 50% of market values in the early 2020s. This means that housing wealth is undertaxed relative to other asset classes. It also likely biases the measured levels and increases of top wealth shares upward. However, our analysis shows such bias not to be the principal driver of observed wealth inequality.

To summarize the key results, Switzerland’s private wealth is growing faster than incomes, and it is highly concentrated among the very wealthy and the elderly. Wealth is transferred across generations increasingly late in heirs’ lives. Most Swiss people do not dissave significantly after retirement.

The rising volume of inheritances and inter-vivos gifts implies a growing role of inherited wealth in shaping economic opportunities and outcomes. Meanwhile, effective tax rates on wealth and bequests have been lowered—those on bequests by a factor of three since 1990. The report contains 156 pages of detailed tables and figures, most of which are based on the individual-level tax data. It thus describes the evolution and distribution of wealth, inheritance, and inter-vivos gifts in unprecedented breadth and depth.