Household Wealth

This quarterly report on the wealth of Irish households complements the statistical releases for Irish Quarterly Financial Accounts with more detail on households' assets and liabilities and a breakdown by wealth distribution.

Key Points – Q4 2024

Publication date: 29 May 2025

• The net wealth of Irish households reached €1,246.5bn at the end of Q4 2024, increasing by €43.0bn since the previous quarter.
• Total household investment of €8.9bn was mainly driven by investment in new housing and deposits.
• The total value of housing assets owned by Irish households increased by €28.3bn since the previous quarter, largely due to positive revaluations.
• As of Q4 2024, the wealthiest 10 per cent of households held 49.1 per cent of total net wealth in the country.

Chart 1 – Total net wealth of Irish households 

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Total net wealth of Irish households rose by €43.0bn to stand at €1,246.5bn in Q4 2024. This represents a new series high, continuing the pattern of growth seen in recent years.

Total financial assets of the Irish household sector equalled €570.4bn, reflecting an increase of €14.9bn over the quarter. They were mainly composed of currency and deposits (€208.5bn) and insurance and pension entitlements (€271.5bn).

Total housing wealth increased by €28.3bn to reach €839.7bn. As of Q4 2024, housing assets represented 67.4 per cent of total net wealth and 59.5 per cent of total assets of Irish households.

Conversely, total liabilities, mainly consisting of long-term loans, amounted to €163.6bn. They remained largely unchanged when compared to the previous quarter.

Chart 2 – Quarterly investment of Irish households, by instrument

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Chart 3 – Household leverage indicators 

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Total household loans decreased by €0.1bn over the quarter, totalling €158.0bn as of Q4 2024. During the same period, total assets increased by €43.2bn. These two movements caused the debt-to-assets ratio of Irish households to reduce to 11.2 per cent.

The debt-to-income ratio of Irish households also decreased to reach 91.4 per cent at the end of the quarter. Data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows that household gross disposable income (on an annualised basis) equalled €173.0bn as of Q4 2024.

Chart 4 – Total net wealth of Irish households, by wealth decile 

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Distributional Wealth Accounts (DWA) data provide insights on the distribution of wealth across Irish households.

As of Q4 2024, the wealthiest 10 per cent of Irish households owned €648.9bn, or 49.1 per cent of total household net wealth in the country. This is more than five times the amount held by households in the bottom half of the net wealth distribution altogether (€115.1bn, or 8.7 per cent). Since the beginning of the series in 2013, however, the proportion of wealth held by the poorest half of households followed an upward trend, highlighting decreasing wealth inequality in the country.

As of Q4 2024, households in the “middle” part of the distribution (i.e., those in deciles 6 to 9) owned €556.8bn overall, or 42.2 per cent of the total.

Compared to the previous quarter, total net wealth increased by €4.9bn (4.5 per cent) for households in the poorest half and by €19.7bn (3.1 per cent) for households in the richest decile. For both groups this increase was driven by growth in total assets over the course of the quarter.

Chart 5 – Balance sheet composition of Irish households, by wealth decile

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The balance sheet composition of Irish households differs significantly between the wealthier and poorer.

Overall, as of Q4 2024, households in the top net wealth decile displayed a more diversified portfolio composition, where business wealth (i.e., equity in unlisted companies and non-residential non-financial assets) featured prominently (22.6 per cent of total assets). Compared to households in the bottom half of the wealth distribution, they also displayed lower leverage (5.9 per cent).

Conversely, poorer households held the largest part of their financial wealth in deposits (19.2 per cent of their total assets) and were significantly more leveraged (30.0 per cent).

For all household groups, housing assets represent the main component of their wealth.

The balance sheet composition of households in each wealth decile remained almost unchanged from the previous quarter. Since the beginning of the series, these proportions have been generally stable over time. 

Chart 6 – Gini coefficient of wealth inequality

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As of Q4 2024, the Irish Gini coefficient (a widely used measurement of wealth inequality) was 65.0, marginally decreasing from the previous quarter.

This remained well below the value of the same index for the euro area as a whole (72.4) and of most other European countries, as it has been for the past years. Moreover, since the beginning of the series, the Gini coefficient for Ireland decreased significantly (-12.3 points), indicating a notable reduction in the level of wealth inequality in the country.

The sustained de-leveraging process of poorer households and the rise in value of housing assets – which mainly benefited households for whom this asset represents a larger component of their total wealth (i.e., mid-lower deciles) – drove the increase in the share of total net wealth held by the poorest half of households. As a result, net wealth inequality in Ireland significantly decreased since the beginning of the series.

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