To be in the top 10% of U.S. household incomes, you need to earn nearly $200,000 a year, but the exact criteria will vary depending on where you live.
Visa’s recent analysis calculated the income and net worth of households in the United States that are considered “wealthy,” defined in the report as households in the top 10% of households in either income or net worth. Visa based its standards on 2024 U.S. Census data.
Nationally, that standard is an annual income of about $210,000, or a net worth of about $1.8 million. Net worth is a measure of a household’s total assets, including home equity, savings, and investments, minus debt.
Since 2020, these standards have been rising, with the income needed to reach the top 10% at around $170,000 and the wealth threshold nationally at around $1.3 million. Rising house prices and stock prices are pushing both numbers up, while wage growth is gaining even more momentum, the study said.
The analysis also examined how these thresholds vary by region, accounting for regional price differences using cost of living data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Let’s take a look at what it takes to be considered wealthy in different regions of the country.
West: Income $227,000, net worth $2 million Northeast: Income $222,000, net worth $1.9 million South: Income $205,000, net worth $1.8 million Midwest: Income $198,000, net worth $1.7 million
Regional cutoffs reflect the amount households pay for housing, goods, and daily services in each region. The threshold adjusts to local prices, so high-cost areas require more income or net worth to be considered wealthy, while lower-cost areas require less.
Housing plays a huge role in these cost differences because it accounts for the largest proportion of household expenditures, the study said.
This is consistent with the latest regional data, with median existing home prices ranging from about $319,500 in the Midwest to about $628,500 in the West as of October 2025, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Wealth has increased in the US since 2020
Visa’s analysis does not include net worth for each region in 2020, but Federal Reserve data shows that wealth held by the top 10% of all households has increased by about 40% over the past five years as asset prices have risen.
Much of the increase in wealth is due to the rise in the stock market and real estate. The top 10% of Americans own more than 87% of corporate and mutual fund stocks, and the value of these assets has increased sharply since 2020, according to data from the Federal Reserve. The S&P 500 — a market benchmark that tracks about 500 of the largest publicly traded companies in the United States — is up about 109% over the past five years.
Rising housing values also contributed to an increase in household wealth. Median home prices in the U.S. rose about 25% over the same period, according to U.S. Census data.
This increase also reflects greater income growth for high-income households. The threshold for households to be in the top 10% of income earners has increased by 23% since 2020, according to Visa analysis.
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