Press Statement

Preasráiteas

19 May 2022

Go to release: Household Finance and Consumption Survey 2020 - Archived

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (19 May 2022) published the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) 2020.

Commenting on the report Stephen Lee, Statistician with the Income, Consumption and Wealth (ICW) Division, said: “The HFCS is the only household survey that collects combined information on asset, income and debt levels of Irish households.

It is important to note that the HFCS 2020 results are not comparable with outputs from 2013 and 2018 as this iteration supplemented household survey data with administrative data from the Central Credit Register (CCR). Access to the CCR has resulted in more reliable estimates, improved data quality, and enables valuable insights regarding household debt. For example, the debt participation rate is approximately 15 percentage points higher when using the CCR.

Net Wealth

The results show that in Ireland, the wealthiest 10% of all households have a net wealth greater than €788,400 while the bottom 10% have a net wealth of less than €600. Net wealth is calculated as the value of all assets minus debt.

In 2020, the median net wealth value of Irish households was €193,100. The median value is obtained by arranging all households in ascending order from the smallest to the largest value and then selecting the middle value. In terms of wealth, the median provides a truer reflection of the average household as it is not influenced by extreme values. 

The value of the household’s main residence is a key component of wealth. In Ireland, almost 70% of households own their own residence. In 2020, the median value for households’ main residence was €260,000.

The median net wealth of households that own their own home is €303,900 while for renters it is considerably less, at €5,300.

Households in the Eastern and Midlands region, which includes Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Longford, Louth, Offaly, Meath, Westmeath and Wicklow, have the highest median net wealth of €223,000, compared with €181,000 in the Southern’ region (Carlow, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Kilkenny, Limerick, Tipperary, Waterford and Wexford) and €173,300 in the Northern and Western region (Cavan, Donegal, Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Monaghan, Roscommon and Sligo).

Assets and Savings

More than nine out of every ten households (97%) own some form of financial asset including savings, shares, bonds, investments, and voluntary pensions. For households that own financial assets, the median value is €13,300.

Almost seven in ten (68%) households have some form of debt including mortgages, loans, credit cards and overdrafts. The median value of debt, for those households that have debt, is €25,000.

For households that have a mortgage on their home, the median loan to value (LTV), or the ratio of the outstanding amount of the mortgage to the current value of the property, is 45.2%. In 2020, 4% of all homes owned with a mortgage are in negative equity.”

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