How much cash should you have?

Liquid money is a behavioral category. It is the part of your wealth that you would actually spend, or that you actually keep available for spending. Stocks are technically sellable in a day, but they are held with intent to invest, not spend. Treating them as cash confuses the question.

Retirement accounts are excluded for the same reason. They cannot be drawn down without penalty before retirement age in most jurisdictions, so they are not behaviorally liquid even if they are mathematically large.

The Eurozone uses the European Central Bank's Household Finance and Consumption Survey, which publishes "deposits" as a primary wealth category. The United States uses the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances, with "transaction accounts" and "certificates of deposit" combined. The United Kingdom uses the ONS Wealth and Assets Survey. Australia uses HILDA. Canada uses the Survey of Financial Security. Japan uses the Family Income and Expenditure Survey.

Aggregate cross-country totals are cross-referenced against BIS retail bank deposits statistics. For countries without survey-level distribution data, we apply a regional peer's distribution shape to the country's BIS aggregate; these are flagged as estimated.

Liquid-money holdings vary across countries by more than wealth itself does. Anglophone countries (US, UK, Australia, Canada) hold relatively low cash because their financial systems push households toward investment products. Continental Europe (Germany, France, Italy) holds more, partly out of preference and partly because banking culture rewards it. Japan and Switzerland hold the most, driven by demographic age structure and historical low-interest equilibria.

The differences are not a quality judgment. A country with high household cash holdings is not richer or more cautious by some abstract measure; it is the equilibrium of that country's financial culture, tax structure, and demographic mix.

The figures are individual, on a per-adult basis. Households pooling income are not interchangeable with individuals.

Cross-country comparison via the display-currency picker uses snapshot FX rates. Purchasing power parity is not adjusted; €5,000 in Germany and €5,000 converted to US dollars do not buy the same basket. The methodology trades PPP rigor for currency clarity.

For a small set of expat-heavy economies (UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Singapore in part), the population-wide figures dilute either the national or the foreign-resident picture. Per-country footnotes flag these where applicable.

Is my stock portfolio liquid? Not in this tool. Stocks are technically sellable in a day, but the methodology treats them as investments rather than cash.

Should I include my emergency fund? Yes, if it sits in a checking, savings, or money-market account.

What about my home equity? Excluded. Real estate is not liquid.

How much cash should I have? The tool does not advise. The country median and average shown are descriptive, not prescriptive.

Are crypto holdings counted? Major-coin holdings (BTC, ETH, stablecoins) are counted as liquid. Holdings in smaller, thinly traded tokens are not.

Data is refreshed annually, in line with the underlying source releases from HFCS, the US Survey of Consumer Finances, and equivalent national surveys.