The idea, and the evidence

What is a family office?

A private team whose only client is one family, looking after its whole financial life. The idea is more than a century old, it has never been more popular, and the problems it exists to solve are ones most families share. Every figure on this page links to its source.

See the numbers Read the sources

The short answer

An office with one client: the family.

A family office is a private company that runs the financial and personal affairs of a wealthy family. A single family office serves one family; a multi-family office shares its people across several.

In the United States the term has a legal meaning. Under the SEC’s Family Office Rule, an office advises only family clients, is wholly owned and controlled by the family, and does not offer its services to the public.1

What sets it apart is scope. A bank looks after accounts, an adviser looks after a portfolio and a lawyer looks after a will. The office holds all of it at once, works only for the family and remembers why every decision was made.

Figure 1 Where a family office’s time goes Share of staff time by activity, single family offices worldwide, 2024
  • Managing the portfolio30%
  • Investing directly in companies22%
  • Administration and compliance19%
  • Supporting the family business15%
  • Preparing the next generation7%
  • Philanthropy7%

Investing takes about half the day. The other half is records, rules, the family business and the people who will one day inherit it.

Source: Deloitte Private, Defining the Family Office Landscape, 2024.2

A short history

From the king’s steward to Room 5600.

The family office is older than most banks families use today. Six moments in how it became what it is.

  1. 6th centuryThe steward

    The idea is usually traced to the king’s steward, who managed a royal family’s wealth and estates.3

  2. 1882The first modern office

    John D. Rockefeller opens an office in New York to manage his family’s investment, personal and philanthropic interests. It came to be known as Room 5600.4, 5

  3. 1907An office for other families

    Steel magnate Henry Phipps founds Bessemer Trust as his family’s office. In 1974 it takes its first clients from outside the family.6

  4. 1980The office goes on record

    Rockefeller & Co. registers with the SEC as an investment adviser. It goes on to manage money for other wealthy families too.4, 5

  5. 2011Defined in law

    On June 22, 2011, the SEC adopts the Family Office Rule, setting out which offices need not register as investment advisers.1

  6. 2024The boom

    About 8,030 single family offices worldwide, 68% of them founded after 2000.2

The numbers today

A small club, growing fast.

Only about 8,000 families in the world run an office of their own. Their number has grown by almost a third in five years.

Figure 2 Single family offices worldwide Estimated number of offices; 2025 and 2030 are projections
  • 6,1302019
  • 8,0302024
  • 9,0302025Projected
  • 10,7202030Projected

Source: Deloitte Private, Defining the Family Office Landscape, 2024.2

  • $3.1 trillionmanaged by single family offices today, expected to reach $5.4 trillion by 2030.2
  • 3,180single family offices in North America, about four in ten of the world’s.2
  • 68%of all single family offices were founded after 2000.2
  • 86%of family offices lack a clear succession plan for their key decision makers.7

Built for the very wealthiest.

  • $100 million+in investable assets: the families that family offices generally serve, industry commenters told the SEC.1
  • $3 milliona year: the average cost of running a family office, and $6.6 million above $1 billion in assets.7
  • $1.6 billionthe average net worth of the families in J.P. Morgan’s 2026 survey of 333 offices.7

The problems it solves

The gaps most families live with.

Money problems are rarely about returns. They are about papers nobody can find, plans nobody wrote and conversations nobody had. National surveys show how common they are, well beyond the very wealthy.

32%

of American adults have a will.

Among adults under 60, about a third or fewer do.

What an office doesKeeps the plan written, current and where the family can find it.

Pew Research Center, 2025.8

21%

of parents have told their children about their finished estate plans.

Married or partnered parents over 55 with $500,000 or more.

What an office doesHolds the family meeting and keeps a record of who knows what.

Fidelity Investments, 2026.9

36%

of Americans with $25 million or more say their heirs are very prepared to inherit.

61% worry about what the money will do to their heirs’ motivation.

What an office doesPrepares the next generation years before anything changes hands.

Bank of America Private Bank, 2026.10

27%

of people expecting an inheritance would keep the adviser who manages it.

Among those who have already inherited, 20%.

What an office doesKeeps the reasons behind every decision in the family’s own record, so nothing resets when an adviser changes.

Cerulli Associates, 2025.11

1 in 7

Americans has money or property waiting, unclaimed, with a state.

States returned $4.49 billion to its owners in fiscal 2024.

What an office doesKeeps one complete inventory of every account, policy and asset.

NAUPA, 2024.12

47%

of basic personal finance questions are answered correctly by the average American.

The lowest score in the index’s ten years.

What an office doesExplains each decision in plain words, so the family understands what it owns.

TIAA Institute and GFLEC, 2026.13

Planning arrives late.

Only 32% of American adults have a will. The share climbs with age: 46% in their 60s, 66% in their 70s and about eight in ten after 80. Most families write their plans down decades after they first needed them.8

The cost is not only on paper: 69% of Americans say financial uncertainty has made them feel depressed and anxious.14

Figure 3 American adults with a will, by age September 2025, 8,750 adults
  • ~1 in 3Under 60
  • 46%60s
  • 66%70s
  • ~8 in 1080 and over

Pew reports the youngest group as “about a third or fewer” and the oldest as “about eight in ten”; the lighter bars are drawn at those levels.

Source: Pew Research Center, 2025.8

Why now

The great wealth transfer is underway.

Cerulli Associates estimates that $124 trillion will pass between American households through 2048.15 How well it goes depends on the records, the plans and the conversations above.

Where the $124 trillion is expected to goUnited States, 2024 to 2048
  • $105 trillion to heirs
  • $18 trillion to charity
  • $54 trillionis expected to pass first between spouses, more than 95% of it to women.16
  • 2%of households, the wealthiest, account for more than half of the total.15
  • $36 trillionVisa’s lower estimate of what baby boomers will pass to their heirs over 20 years, after debt, spending, taxes and fees, and leaving out the top 1%.17

Split of the $124 trillion: Cerulli Associates, 2024; the parts are rounded.15

Where Finna fits

The same five jobs, without the $100 million.

Take away the staff and the fees, and a family office does five jobs. Finna organizes them as five desks, for families who would never hire an office of their own.

Finna is a technology platform. It is not a family office under the SEC’s rule, it is not registered with or regulated by any financial authority, and it does not give investment, tax or legal advice.

See how it works Compare the plans

Sources

Where every number comes from.

Figures are quoted as each source published them. Surveys differ in method and sample, so where a figure describes a particular group, the text says which.

  1. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Family Offices, final rule, Release No. IA-3220, adopted June 22, 2011. sec.gov
  2. Deloitte Private, Defining the Family Office Landscape, 2024. deloitte.com
  3. EY, Family Office Guide: Pathway to successful family and wealth management, 2013. unisg.ch
  4. Rockefeller Asset Management, Form ADV Part 2A brochure, May 2, 2023, filed with the SEC. adviserinfo.sec.gov
  5. The Boston Globe, “In downsizing, Rockefeller operation to quit legendary Room 5600,” November 24, 2014. bostonglobe.com
  6. Institutional Investor, “Bessemer’s conversion,” February 1, 2001. institutionalinvestor.com
  7. J.P. Morgan Private Bank, 2026 Global Family Office Report, February 2, 2026; 333 family offices in 30 countries. prnewswire.com
  8. Pew Research Center, Experiences with estate planning and discussing end-of-life preferences, November 6, 2025; 8,750 U.S. adults, surveyed September 2 to 8, 2025. pewresearch.org
  9. Fidelity Investments, 2026 Transition Ready Family Study, September 17, 2026; 654 married or partnered adults 55 and over with $500,000 or more and an adult child. nasdaq.com
  10. Bank of America Private Bank, 2026 Study of Wealthy Americans; 1,431 respondents with $3 million or more, the figure cited for those with $25 million or more. privatebank.bankofamerica.com
  11. Cerulli Associates, “Many investors expect inheritances, yet few likely to maintain benefactor’s advisor,” September 3, 2025. cerulli.com
  12. National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA), annual report release, October 29, 2024. nast.org
  13. TIAA Institute and the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center (GFLEC), 2026 TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index, June 1, 2026. tiaa.org
  14. Northwestern Mutual, 2025 Planning & Progress Study, June 3, 2025; 4,626 U.S. adults. northwesternmutual.com
  15. Cerulli Associates, U.S. High-Net-Worth and Ultra-High-Net-Worth Markets 2024: The Great Wealth Transfer, December 5, 2024. cerulli.com
  16. Cerulli Associates, “$54 trillion will transfer to widows through 2048,” January 22, 2025. cerulli.com
  17. Visa, “The great wealth transfer reality check,” July 2026. visa.com

This page explains a concept and reports published research. It is not investment, tax or legal advice.

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