Business Owner Net Worth: How Much of It Is the Business? Federal Reserve Data (2026)

Business owner net worth: the typical owner family keeps about a sixth of it in the business

The median owner family held 16.6% of its net worth in its actively managed business in 2025. The distribution is wide: a quarter of owners held 3.2% or less, and a tenth held 78.2% or more.

Actively managed business: A privately held business in which someone in the family has an active management role (SCF question X3104). Its value, ACTBUS, is what the family's share would bring if sold today, net of business debts, plus loans the family made to the business. Passive stakes such as limited partnership interests are left out.

The figure here is the median of each family's own ratio of business value to net worth. It is not the ratio of the two medians: dividing the median business value ($64,000) by the median owner net worth ($790,700) gives 8.1%, which describes no actual family because the two medians belong to different households.

23.6% of owner families held more than half of their net worth in the business in 2025, and 11.6% held more than three quarters. Using gross assets instead of net worth as the yardstick, 19.2% were above half, so the result does not hinge on how much personal debt a family carries.

Separately, 12.0% of owner families reported that their business had no net value. 80.7% of these zero-value businesses have one person working in them, the owner. The Fed's 2022 report found something similar: the median nonemployer business owner reported no net value for the business (Federal Reserve, October 2023).

Among owners 55 and older, 22.6% have more than half their wealth in the business

Older owners are not more concentrated than younger owners on average: 22.6% of owner families aged 55+ were above the halfway line in 2025, against 24.4% of those under 55. The difference sits inside the error margins.

The signature figure of this report is 22.6%: the share of US families with a reference person aged 55 or older, an actively managed business and positive net worth, whose business is worth more than half of that net worth. The standard error is 2.4 points and the estimate rests on 591 sample families. Scaled to the population, that is about 1.8 million families out of 8.2 million owner families aged 55+.

The median share falls with age, from 25.6% for owners under 35 to 5.9% for owners 75 or older, because older families have had decades to build home equity and retirement accounts. The share above half moves much less, between 20.4% and 32.2% across the six age groups.

Restricting to owners aged 55+ whose business is worth $100,000 or more, a group that makes up 51.9% of older owners and is closer to the businesses that brokers sell, 37.1% hold more than half their net worth in the business (standard error 3.5 points). For an owner in that group, the price the business fetches has a direct bearing on household wealth. The six stages of a sale describe how that price is set.

Once a business is worth $1 million, it is usually most of the family's wealth

Business value separates owners far more sharply than age. The median share is 4.1% for businesses worth under $100,000, 31.4% for $100,000 to $999,999 and 58.1% for $1 million to $9.99 million.

Most owner families run small businesses: 54.8% reported an actively managed interest worth under $100,000 in 2025. For them the business is a side income or a job, not a store of wealth, and only 7.7% are above half. In the $1 million to $9.99 million band, 57.3% are above half, and 59.4% of those owners are 55 or older.

Counting the people who work in the business tells the same story. Owner-only businesses are 47.4% of owner families with a median value of $25,000; businesses with 10 to 99 people have a median value of $1.20 million and a median share of 39.9%.

Owner families have 4.4 times the median net worth of families without a business

The median owner family had a net worth of $790,700 in 2025 against $181,500 for other families. Take the business out and the owner median is still $490,400.

Mean values are far higher than medians because a few families own very valuable firms: the mean owner net worth was $3.59 million and the mean business interest $1.36 million in 2025. Medians describe the typical family; means are dominated by the top. Summed across all owner families, business interests made up 37.8% of owner net worth, more than twice the median family's share, for the same reason.

Owning a business is linked to wealth, but the survey cannot say which causes which: savings can fund a business, and a business can build savings. Older owners have also had longer to accumulate. The comparison is descriptive.

Do business owners have retirement savings? Most do, but fewer older owners did in 2025

58.9% of owner families aged 55+ held a retirement account in 2025, more than the 52.0% of other families that age but well below the 70.8% measured for older owners in 2022.

Among older families who hold a retirement account, owners have larger balances: a median of $573,700 against $204,200 for non-owners in 2025, 2.8 times as much. A smaller group has neither a diversified balance sheet nor a retirement account. 12.9% of owner families aged 55+ had more than half their net worth in the business and no retirement account in 2025, and 18.9% among those whose business is worth $100,000 or more.

What moved between the 2022 and 2025 surveys, and what was within the noise

Of the headline measures below, two changed by more than their combined error margin between 2022 and 2025: the share of older owners with a retirement account fell, and the mean business interest fell. The concentration figures held steady.

• Owner families aged 55+ with a retirement account: 70.8% to 58.9%, a change of -11.9 points (z = -2.89). Outside the error margin.
• Mean actively managed business interest: $1.66 million to $1.36 million (z = -2.17). Outside the error margin, consistent with the Fed's report of a 12 percent fall in mean business equity.
• Owners aged 55+ with the business over half of net worth: 21.1% to 22.6% (z = 0.45). No meaningful change.
• All owners with the business over half of net worth: 25.5% to 23.6% (z = -0.82). No meaningful change.
• Median business share of net worth: 18.8% to 16.6% (z = -0.70). No meaningful change.
• Owners aged 55+ over half with no retirement account: 8.0% to 12.9% (z = 1.89). Close to, but inside, the error margin.
• Families with an actively managed business: 13.1% to 13.9% (z = 1.11). Inside the error margin.
• For comparison, non-owner families aged 55+ with a retirement account rose from 48.1% to 52.0% (z = 2.26), so the drop among older owners did not happen across all older families.

Survey-to-survey moves in a subgroup this size can reflect who was sampled. The Fed's 2025 report also records a larger share of families aged over 75 in the 2025 survey (Federal Reserve, October 2026), which shifts the mix of the 55+ group. We report the retirement-account drop as measured and do not attribute a cause.

Why this report counts 13.9% of families as owners when the Fed says 15.4%

The Fed's headline business-equity figure counts any private business stake, including passive investments. This report keeps only families with an active management role, the group that runs a business it could sell.

The SCF splits business wealth into ACTBUS (actively managed businesses) and NONACTBUS (passive stakes, such as limited partnership units). The Fed's report counts both, which is why it gives 15.4% of families with business equity in 2025. It also leaves out the 5 percent of families whose reference person is self-employed but reports no business interest; so do we.

Before computing anything new, we checked that our code reproduces the Fed's own published numbers from the same public files. It does, for median and mean net worth and for the business-equity ownership rate, median and mean, in both survey years.

The numbers in one list

1. 13.9% of US families had an actively managed business interest in 2025 (standard error 0.5 points), up from 13.1% in 2022.^{[1][2][3][9][10][11]}
2. About 18.7 million US families actively managed a privately held business in 2025.^[1][2][3]
3. The median actively managed business interest was worth $64,000 in 2025; the mean was $1.36 million, pulled up by a small number of very large firms.^[1][2][3]
4. The median business share of net worth for US owner families was 16.6% in 2025, compared with 18.8% in 2022.^{[1][2][3][9][10][11]}
5. 23.6% of US owner families held more than half their net worth in their business in 2025.^[1][2][3]
6. 22.6% of US owner families with a reference person aged 55 or older held more than half their net worth in the business in 2025 (21.1% in 2022).^{[1][2][3][9][10][11]}
7. Among US owners aged 55+ with a business worth $100,000 or more, 37.1% held more than half their net worth in it in 2025.^[1][2][3]
8. The median business share of net worth falls with age, from 25.6% for owners under 35 to 5.9% for owners 75 or older (US, 2025).^[1][2][3]
9. US owner families with a business worth $1 million to $9.99 million had a median business share of 58.1% in 2025; 57.3% were above half.^[1][2][3]
10. Owner-only businesses (one person working) made up 47.4% of US owner families in 2025 and had a median business value of $25,000.^[1][2][3]
11. US owner families had a median net worth of $790,700 in 2025, against $181,500 for families without an actively managed business.^[1][2][3]
12. 58.9% of US owner families aged 55+ had a retirement account in 2025, compared with 52.0% of families aged 55+ without a business.^[1][2][3]
13. 12.9% of US owner families aged 55+ had both more than half their net worth in the business and no retirement account in 2025, up from 8.0% in 2022.^{[1][2][3][9][10][11]}
14. Summed across all US owner families, business interests were 37.8% of owner net worth in 2025, a ratio of totals that is dominated by the wealthiest owners.^[1][2][3]

Calculations

Download the calculations (CSV)

Summary

• 13.9% of US families, about 18.7 million, had a member with an active management role in a privately held business in 2025.
• For the median owner family, the business was 16.6% of net worth in 2025. Half of owner families sat between 3.2% and 46.0%.
• 23.6% of owner families held more than half their net worth in the business; 11.6% held more than three quarters.
• Among owners aged 55 and older, the signature figure is 22.6% above the halfway line, about 1.8 million families. The rate is 37.1% when the business is worth $100,000 or more.
• Business value drives concentration more than age: the median share is 4.1% for businesses under $100,000 and 58.1% for businesses worth $1 million to $9.99 million.
• 58.9% of owner families aged 55+ had a retirement account in 2025, against 70.8% in 2022, a drop larger than the survey's error margin.
• Median net worth of owner families was $790,700 in 2025, 4.4 times the $181,500 of families without an actively managed business.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides, services and research

• Find the right broker to sell your business
• How a business sale works
• How Many Trucking Companies Are There in the US? Carriers by Fleet Size and State (2026)
• Liquor License Transfer Rules by State: Can a Bar or Restaurant License Be Sold? (2026)
• Mini WARN Act by State: 16 Layoff Notice Laws Compared With Federal WARN (2026)
• Non Compete Sale of Business Rules: 51-Jurisdiction Statute Registry (2026)
• All business sale research

Reproduce this analysis

Every figure comes from the files below. The scripts that pulled and computed them are kept with the report and can be re-run.

Data quality and exclusions

• Merged the 2025 summary extract (21,800 rows) with the full public data on Y1: all rows matched, none dropped. Same for 2022 (22,975 rows).
• Owner status (X3104) differs across implicates for 1 family in each survey year because it is imputed; each implicate's own value was used.
• 330 of 5,245 owner rows in 2025 (452 of 5,535 in 2022) report a business value of zero or less; kept as owners with a share of zero.
• 86 owner rows in 2025 and 84 in 2022 have zero or negative net worth (2.9% of owners, weighted, in 2025). Excluded from share-of-net-worth measures because the ratio is undefined; kept in counts and dollar medians.
• 2 rows in 2022 have a negative ACTBUS (farm business debts exceeding farm assets); kept as reported. No 2025 rows are negative.
• Replicate weights are blank where a case was not drawn in a replicate; blanks were set to zero before multiplying by the multiplicity factor, as the codebook implies.
• The public file rounds business worker counts above 10 to the nearest 5 and top-codes them at 5,000, so a business with 98 or 99 workers can appear in the 100-or-more band; the 10-worker edge is unaffected.

Methodology

Source selection. All figures come from the Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the only US survey that measures both the value of a family's private business and its full balance sheet. We used the 2025 survey, the most recent (published October 2026), and the 2022 survey for comparison. Both summary extracts on the Fed's site are in 2025 dollars, so no further inflation adjustment was applied.

Owner definition. A family is an owner if any member has an active management role in a privately held business (X3104 = 1, from the full public data set, merged to the summary extract on the case identifier Y1). Business value is ACTBUS from the summary extract, built by the Fed's own SAS macro. Passive stakes (NONACTBUS) are excluded. Families whose actively managed business has no net value remain owners with a share of zero.

Weights and implicates. The SCF stores five imputed copies (implicates) of each family. In the 2022 and 2025 summary extracts, each implicate's weight WGT sums to one fifth of the population, so pooling all five implicates with WGT gives population totals. Pooling is the method that reproduces the Fed's public-data tables exactly (table t1); the Fed's FAQ describes the alternative of averaging the five implicate estimates as exact for medians, and our results file reports both. For shares and means the two methods are identical; for medians they differ by less than half a standard error in every estimate we report.

Standard errors. We followed the codebook macro MEANIT: imputation variance is the variance of the five implicate estimates; sampling variance is the variance of 999 estimates on implicate 1 using replicate weight times multiplicity; the total is the square root of 1.2 times imputation variance plus sampling variance. Changes between surveys are tested with z = change divided by the square root of the summed squared standard errors.

Derived metrics. The business share of net worth is ACTBUS divided by NETWORTH, computed for each family with positive net worth, then summarised by weighted median, percentiles and threshold shares. We state when a figure is a ratio of totals (aggregate share) rather than a per-family median. As a check that does not depend on debt, we repeated the threshold test against gross assets.

Conflicts. Where the Fed's printed report (internal data) and its public-data tables differ, for example median net worth of $215,900 versus $216,100 in 2025, we validate against the public-data tables because they are built from the same files we used, and cite the report figures as context.

Exclusions and limits. Claims about owners' retirement savings from vendor surveys and advisory-firm percentages that we could not trace to a primary source were dropped (see excluded.md). Sister-site topics such as valuation multiples and capital gains are not covered. Last updated 2026-11-02. Readers looking for a broker can use the broker matching service; nothing in this report depends on it.

This report presents published data with its limitations. It is not legal, financial or investment advice.

Sources, ranked by quality

Tier 1: primary and official sources (17)

• [1] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Survey of Consumer Finances 2025, summary extract public data (CSV, scfp2025excel.zip). 2025 survey. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [2] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Survey of Consumer Finances 2025, full public data set (Stata, scf2025s.zip). 2025 survey. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [3] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Survey of Consumer Finances 2025, replicate weight file (Stata, scf2025rw1s.zip). 2025 survey. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [4] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Survey of Consumer Finances 2025 codebook. 2025 survey. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [5] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. SAS macro that builds the SCF summary variables (bulletin.macro.txt). 2025 survey. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [6] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2022 to 2025: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances (October 2026). 2022 and 2025 surveys. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [7] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. SCF tables based on the public data, inflation-adjusted to 2025 dollars, 1989 to 2025. 1989 to 2025 surveys. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [8] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) 2025 data page. 2025 survey. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [9] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Survey of Consumer Finances 2022, summary extract public data (CSV, scfp2022excel.zip, 2025 dollars). 2022 survey. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [10] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Survey of Consumer Finances 2022, full public data set (Stata, scf2022s.zip). 2022 survey. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [11] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Survey of Consumer Finances 2022, replicate weight file (Stata, scf2022rw1s.zip). 2022 survey. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [12] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Survey of Consumer Finances 2022 data page. 2022 survey. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [13] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2019 to 2022: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances (October 2023). 2019 and 2022 surveys. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [14] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. SCF standard error documentation. all surveys. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [15] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. SCF frequently asked questions. current. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [16] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. About the Survey of Consumer Finances. current. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [17] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. SCF tables based on the public data, nominal dollars, 1989 to 2025. 1989 to 2025 surveys. Accessed 2026-11-02.