How to calculate your net worth: the 4-step method, with an example
Calculate your net worth in 4 steps: value your assets, list your debts, subtract, and see where you stand against the median for your age. Worked example and free calculator.
How to calculate your net worth: the 4-step method, with an example
"How much am I worth?" The question sounds simple. Yet most people cannot answer it in under a minute — not for lack of money, but because nobody ever showed them how to do the sum. A flat with a mortgage on it, a life insurance policy opened ten years ago, a share plan, a car, a consumer loan: how does all that add up?
If you want the number right now, the net worth calculator does it in four fields, in your browser, and places you against the French median for your age. If you want to understand what you are calculating — and avoid the mistakes that skew the result by tens of thousands of euros — this article gives you the full method, with a worked example from start to finish.
What you are really calculating: net worth
When people talk about "calculating their wealth", they almost always mean net worth: what would be left if you sold everything you own and repaid everything you owe.
The formula fits on one line:
Net worth = Assets − Liabilities
Assets are everything with a resale value: property, savings, investments, crypto, company shares, valuables. Liabilities are everything you owe: mortgage, car loan, consumer credit, overdraft.
Gross wealth — the sum of assets, without deducting debts — is the figure people quote spontaneously, and it is the wrong one. A couple who own a €400,000 flat with €320,000 still owed have comfortable gross wealth and a net worth of €80,000. Those are two very different realities; only the second describes their situation. Our article on the definition of net worth develops this distinction.
Step 1: list and value your assets
This is the longest step, and the one where most things get forgotten. Go category by category, noting for each line its value today — not what you paid, not what you hope for.
Property. Main home, second home, rental property, parking space, real estate fund units. Use the market value: the price the property would sell for now. Public transaction records give a reliable estimate from recent sales in your area. Resist the urge to round up — it is the most common mistake, and it inflates the result by 10 to 20% without anyone noticing.
Savings and investments. Current accounts, savings accounts, life insurance, share plans, brokerage accounts, pension savings and employee savings, crypto. Take the surrender value or today's price, not the cumulative contributions: a life insurance policy you paid €30,000 into that is now worth €36,000 counts for €36,000. Do not forget employee savings at a former employer or the small policy taken out on a banker's advice long ago — these are the great forgotten items of every review.
Other assets. Vehicles, company shares, valuables, loans you have made to others. Many people leave them out for simplicity, and that is reasonable: they depreciate fast and weigh little. Count them if their amount genuinely changes the total — a €25,000 car yes, a sofa no.
What does not count: future rights. A pension to come, an expected inheritance, unvested stock options are not wealth, they are hopes. A wealth review is done on what you own today.
Step 2: list your debts at outstanding capital
One rule here, and it avoids the error that skews the most calculations: the value of a debt is the outstanding capital, meaning what you still have to repay today. Never the monthly payment. Never the amount originally borrowed.
That figure appears on your amortisation schedule, or in your online banking, on the "outstanding capital" line. On a €250,000 mortgage taken out eight years ago, only €165,000 may be left to repay: €165,000 is what goes into the calculation.
List everything: mortgage, car loan, consumer credit, student loan, recurring overdraft, family debt. If you have several loans, add up their outstanding capital.
Step 3: do the subtraction, on an example
Take Claire, 38, an employee who owns her flat.
| Assets | Value |
|---|---|
| Flat (estimated market value) | €310,000 |
| Savings accounts | €18,000 |
| Life insurance (surrender value) | €27,500 |
| Share plan | €14,200 |
| Employee savings (former employer) | €4,800 |
| Car | €9,000 |
| Total assets (gross wealth) | €383,500 |
| Liabilities | Outstanding capital |
|---|---|
| Mortgage | €214,000 |
| Car loan | €5,500 |
| Total liabilities | €219,500 |
Claire's net worth: 383,500 − 219,500 = €164,000.
Two remarks on this example. First, the gap between gross and net: €383,500 on one side, €164,000 on the other. The mortgage makes the difference, and that is normal at 38. Second, the €4,800 of employee savings: Claire had forgotten them. That kind of line, multiplied by three or four neglected items, genuinely changes the result.
To get this figure for yourself in thirty seconds, enter your four totals — property, savings and investments, other assets, debts — in the net worth calculator. Your figures stay in your browser.
Step 4: see where you stand, then track the trend
Once you have the number, the next question comes on its own: is that a lot?
The only honest comparison is with the median wealth of households your age — not the average, which a few very large fortunes pull upward and which describes no one. According to INSEE, the French statistics office, median net worth is around €15,000 before 30, €85,000 between 30 and 39, €160,000 between 40 and 49, €210,000 between 50 and 59, and peaks around €250,000 between 60 and 69. Claire, with €164,000 at 38, is well above the median for her bracket. Our article on wealth by age group explains how to read those figures — and why the gap to the median depends mostly on inheritance, local property prices and life timing. The calculator uses these same French medians as its reference.
But the most useful comparison is not with others. It is with yourself, a year ago. A net worth of €60,000 growing by €10,000 a year tells a better story than €150,000 standing still. The calculation only has value when repeated: redo it on a fixed date, once a quarter or once a year, and watch the curve.
The mistakes that skew the calculation
Four errors come up in almost every first calculation. Knowing them is enough to avoid them.
Counting property at purchase price. A property bought for €200,000 twelve years ago is not worth €200,000 today — nor necessarily €300,000, whatever the neighbour says. Use real transactions.
Using the monthly payment instead of outstanding capital. A €1,100 monthly payment is not a €1,100 debt: it may be €180,000 still to repay. This confusion makes net worth appear far higher than it is.
Forgetting assets. Employee savings, an old life insurance policy, an account at a second bank, crypto on an abandoned exchange. Do the inventory once and for all, and note where each line lives.
Ignoring liabilities, or counting only some. Everyone remembers the mortgage. The car loan, revolving credit and chronic overdraft, far fewer. Yet they weigh on your debt ratio, which measures how much of your assets is financed by credit — the other figure to watch alongside net worth.
Conclusion
Calculating your net worth is four steps: value your assets at today's price, list your debts at outstanding capital, subtract, then see where you stand. The formula is simple; it is the inventory that needs care, and repetition that gives the number its value.
Do it a first time with the calculator, in thirty seconds. Then, if the number interests you enough to want to see it again in six months, give it somewhere to live.
