Friday, Jul 24, 2026 The claims desk. Receipts included. POWERED BY LENZ
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FINANCE

The Claim

In the United Kingdom, 25% of pensioners are millionaires.

The Short Version

The evidence does not show that one quarter of individual UK pensioners are millionaires. Reliable statistics only indicate that about 25% to 27% of over-65s live in households whose combined wealth exceeds £1 million, which is a different claim. No authoritative dataset here establishes that 25% of pensioners personally hold net wealth above £1 million.

Caveats

  • The headline figure comes from household wealth data, not verified individual millionaire counts.
  • A £1 million household often includes two adults, so it cannot be assumed that each person is a millionaire.
  • The statistic usually refers to people aged 65+ or pensioner households, which is not identical to all individual pensioners.

The Receipts

  1. We don’t know how many individual pensioners are millionaires

    Full Fact

  2. Wealth in Great Britain

    UK Parliament

  3. Household total wealth in Great Britain: April 2020 to March 2022

    Office for National Statistics

  4. Pension wealth over £1 million

    Office for National Statistics

  5. 3 million pensioner millionaires: how many pensioner millionaires are there in the UK?

    Intergenerational Foundation

  6. Golden oldies: Are one in five pensioners millionaires?

    Full Fact

  7. Claim 27 per cent of pensioners are millionaires is Mostly True

    The Ferret

  8. Fifth of UK retired couples are pensioner millionaires

    Actuarial Post

  9. Pensioners' Incomes: financial years ending 1995 to 2023

    GOV.UK

  10. The use of wealth in retirement

    Institute for Fiscal Studies

+ 12 more sources — see the full list on Lenz

Filed Under

United Kingdom

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