Household Finance and Consumption Survey 2023

Statistician's Comment

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (11 June 2025) published results from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) 2023.

Detailed information on household assets and liabilities is collected by the HFCS, as well as data on gross income, credit constraints, and financial behaviour. 

Commenting on today’s release, Stephen Lee, Statistician in the Income, Consumption and Wealth Division, said: “The HFCS is the only household survey that collects combined information on assets, income, and debt levels of Irish households. More than 5,000 households from around the country participated in the 2023 wave of the survey, via telephone and doorstep interviews.

Main Results

In 2023, the median net wealth value of Irish households was €256,900. This was an increase of €58,500 or 29% on the 2020 value of €198,400. Net wealth is the value of any assets owned minus the value of any debt. 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. 

Property is the primary source of wealth with almost half (46%) of gross wealth coming from the value of the main residence. More than two-thirds (68%) of households owned their main residence in 2023 with a median value of €340,000, up €80,000 or 30.8% from the €260,000 median value in 2020.The median net wealth for households that own their main residence was €391,600 in 2023 compared with €10,200 for those who rent or those living rent free.

To be in the top 10% of households, a net household wealth of approximately €1,024,000 is needed. This threshold was up from €838,000 in 2020 and is the highest ever recorded in this survey which began in 2015. In 2023, the bottom 10% of households had less than €2,400 in household net wealth. This threshold was up from €1,300 in 2020.

Analysis by Region

The Eastern & Midland region (Dublin, Wicklow, Kildare, Meath, Louth, Longford, Offaly, Westmeath and Laois) had the highest median net wealth at €264,400. This was followed by the Southern region (Clare, Tipperary, Limerick, Waterford, Kilkenny, Carlow, Wexford, Cork and Kerry) at €251,700 and the Northern & Western region (Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan, Galway, Mayo and Roscommon) at €239,000. This was mainly driven by higher house prices in the Eastern & Midland region which includes Dublin and its commuter counties.

Analysis by Age and Debt

Households where the reference person was aged under 35 were the only age group to see a decline in median net wealth since 2020, with the value decreasing from €27,600 in 2020 to €23,400 in 2023. As wealth accumulates with age and debts are paid off, it is not surprising to see households where the reference person was aged 65 and over having the highest median net wealth of any age group, at €404,200. The reference person is the household member considered to be the most knowledgeable about the financial situation of the household.

Two-thirds (66%) of households had some form of debt in 2023 such as a mortgage, personal loan, or credit card balance. This was down from 69% in 2020. The median value of debt, for those that had it, was €34,600, up from €25,000 in 2020.

The downward trend seen in debt participation coincides with an increase in the share of households that are credit constrained. Almost one in ten (9%) households were credit constrained in 2023, up from 7% in 2020. A credit-constrained household is one that applied for credit and was turned down or received less credit than the amount applied for. It may also be one that considered applying for credit but did not do so due to the perception that the application would be turned down.

Three in ten (30%) households had a mortgage on their main residence with the median outstanding balance being €117,900. In 2023, the median loan to value ratio, the ratio of the outstanding amount of the mortgage to the current value of the dwelling, was 36%, down from 45% in 2020. This was mainly due to the increases in house prices since 2020.

Financial Literacy

Respondents were asked a question to test financial literacy: “Imagine leaving €1,000 in a current account that pays 1% interest and no charges. Imagine also that prices increase by 2%. Do you think that if you withdraw the money in a year's time you will be able to buy the same amount of goods as if you spent the €1,000 today?”. The correct answer was no, you would not be able to buy the same amount of goods as today.

Those who answered correctly had a higher net median net wealth of €264,000, compared with €198,300 for those who answered incorrectly. Those who gave the incorrect answer were less likely to have loans or mortgages but more likely to have credit card and overdraft debt.”

Editor's Note

This release presents the results of the 2023 Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS), which was carried out between July 2023 and January 2024. Detailed information on household assets and liabilities is collected by the HFCS, as well as data on gross income and credit constraints. The HFCS is collected under the auspices of the European Central Bank (ECB) Household Finance and Consumption Network (HFCN) which designed the survey for use in the Eurozone.

Comparison with previous HFCS releases

• This is the fourth release in the HFCS series, which was previously undertaken in 2013, 2018, and 2020. It should be noted that methodological changes were introduced in 2023. Administrative data from The Pension Authority relating to the value of Personal Retirement Savings Funds (PRSAs), first obtained in 2024, was used to supplement survey data in the 2023 wave. This data source was also retrospectively added to the 2018 and 2020 waves. A re-evaluation of the weighting process was also carried out. This is the method used to calibrate the sample to known national benchmarks in order to calculate estimates for the whole population of Ireland. This led to the ending of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) as a source of demographic benchmarks and with Census 2022 being used instead. The new weighting process was retrospectively applied to 2018 and 2020 also. Due to these methodological changes, estimates in this release relating to the 2018 and 2020 results differ slightly from those previously published. Updated estimates for 2018 and 2020 can be found on the CSO open data database PxStat tables for HFCS.
• As 2013 estimates were produced using a significantly different methodology to later iterations, comparisons cannot be made between 2013 and later years. This constitutes a break in time series between 2013 and 2018.

Regarding the data in this release, the following should be noted:

• The data was only collected from private households. The results therefore exclude assets and liabilities held by the public sector as well as those directly held by publicly traded companies. Assets and liabilities held abroad by Irish households are included while those held in Ireland by non-domestic households are excluded.

• The data collected was based on self-assessment by the reporting households and was supplemented with other available sources. For example, the data used to derive income from state transfers was taken directly from available administrative records.

• There may be under-reporting of the value of some real or financial asset, deliberate or otherwise. Households found it particularly difficult to provide the value of certain assets such as self-employment business wealth. Therefore, the value of such assets is subject to high degrees of estimation.

• A key challenge in all countries that conduct the HFCS is that wealth distribution is highly skewed. A small proportion of households have substantial asset holdings, and these households may be insufficiently represented in the survey, either because they are not easily accessible or because they refuse to participate. For this reason, this report focuses mostly on indicators (such as medians) that are not affected by an insufficient coverage of the wealthiest households.