India’s wealth map is undergoing a quiet but powerful transformation. While metro and Tier I cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad still dominate the high-net-worth landscape, the momentum is clearly shifting. Today, it is not the billionaires but the multi-crorepatis, those with net worths of ₹8.5 crore (approximately $1 million), who are reshaping India’s wealth narrative. And strikingly, a large chunk of this wealth is now being generated in Tier II, Tier III cities and even smaller towns. As these newly affluent Indians find themselves flush with liquidity, a new question arises: what should they do with it?
The quiet surge of millionaire households
The Mercedes-Benz Hurun India Wealth Report 2025 reveals that India now has 8,71,700 millionaire households, up from 4,58,000 in 2021—a staggering 90% increase over four years. These households represent about 0.31% of all Indian households, a significant jump from the earlier 0.17%.
Unlike in the West, where wealth accumulation is typically skewed towards a small percentage of ultra-wealthy individuals, India is witnessing a broad-based rise in prosperity. In fact, according to the same report, only about 5% of these millionaires are ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNIs) with net worths exceeding $12 million. In essence, India is creating many more crorepatis than billionaires, an indicator that affluence is diffusing more evenly across income groups and regions.
This wealth surge is not confined to metros. According to the Hurun report, Maharashtra leads the country with 1,78,600 millionaire households, with Mumbai alone contributing 1,42,000 of them. But the truly revealing shift lies in where the rest of India stands. States like Delhi (79,800), Tamil Nadu (72,600), Karnataka (68,800), Gujarat (68,300) and Uttar Pradesh (57,700) are emerging as significant reservoirs of wealth.
Perhaps more important is the rise of Tier II cities such as Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur, Vadodara, Nagpur, Visakhapatnam and Lucknow, which now feature among the top 10 cities with the highest number of millionaire households. Beyond these, “micro markets” such as Morbi, Vapi, Panipat, Ludhiana, Tiruppur, Dehradun, Raipur, Rajkot, and Jamshedpur are emerging as serious wealth hubs.
What’s driving this grassroots wealth boom?
The reasons behind this rapid rise in non-metro affluence are both structural and cyclical. Economic decentralisation has played a pivotal role. As industrial hubs expand beyond state capitals, towns like Rajkot and Coimbatore are becoming nerve centres for specific industries such as auto components and engineering. The expansion of logistics, warehousing and small-to-medium enterprises across non-metros is generating concentrated wealth in places previously dependent on agriculture or small-scale trade.
Land monetisation has unleashed a wave of liquidity. In many small towns, families who owned land on the urban fringes are seeing sudden gains as land is acquired or sold to developers or industries or infrastructure projects. This is converting illiquid wealth into cash, which is then looking for investment avenues.
Profitable family businesses in small towns have grown stronger. Many business families from these towns now run highly profitable regional operations in manufacturing, retail, exports or logistics. This homegrown wealth, traditionally reinvested in business or stored in gold and property, is now spilling into the financial ecosystem.