Accredited Investors vs. Qualified Clients vs. Qualified Purchasers

In the United States, there are regulation-driven investor classifications that dictate how private funds work – and, importantly, who can invest in those funds. The three most important investor classifications are the accredited investor, the qualified client, and the qualified purchaser. Depending on fund requirements, in 2026 these categories roughly limit private investments to somewhere between 3% and 18% of American households.

In this post, we'll briefly look at the differences between the three and where they might matter, then take a look at the demographic breakdowns of investors in each class by education, race, age, and family status.

Accredited investors vs. qualified clients vs. qualified purchasers

I've written about each of the three main individual investor designations separately, but here's a general breakdown of what a household needs in each case. Note that each has a few exceptions to qualify, but these are the main criteria for designation listed with the primary reason or place qualification matters.

• Accredited Investor – $1 million in net worth excluding the equity in a primary home, or $200,000 in individual income, or $300,000 in income with a spouse, or a Series 7, 65, or 82 license
  • Allows private investments. For a few examples: shares or debt in private companies, participation in PE funds, hedge funds, venture funds, angel syndicates, real estate syndicates, franchise ownership
• Qualified Client* – more than $2.7 million in net worth excluding the equity in a primary home, or $1.4 million invested with the adviser
  • Allows participation in funds that charge performance fees, sometimes known as carry, carried interest, promotional fees, or promote
• Qualified Purchaser – $5 million in investments excluding any debt to purchase those investments
  • Removes the requirement to cap investment funds at 100 participants when all investors are qualified purchasers

* Note: qualified client thresholds are adjusted for PCE inflation about every five years. These most recent thresholds took effect June 29, 2026.

Other designated investor types – qualified investors and eligible contract participants

Note that these three classifications aren't the only three – and they aren't even the only three dedicated to individuals. There is a designated investor type known as a qualified investor, and for certain commodity transactions, you need to be an eligible contract participant.

In late 2015, the SEC reviewed the five together; here's their summary:

Investor regulatory standard demographics

Using 2025 Federal Reserve SCF data, I further divided the accredited investor, qualified client, and qualified purchaser statistics by educational achievement, race, age, and family status.

Demographics generally are for the survey's reference person; the values themselves are households (roughly – more in the methodology section about PEUs, below). About 1/7 of the 2025 survey's interviews actually took place in early 2026. Share qualifying is the percent of all households in that column who qualify – for example, the share of all college-educated households that are accredited investors.

Spousal wealth counts in every designation – accredited investors can combine with a spouse/spousal equivalent, while qualified clients and purchasers have narrower rules. Please don't ask me to run the numbers for individuals, or by "men vs. women" or so on – it's impossible to disentangle the two in the survey (it's a matter for the courts, after all!), so treat these as household counts.

Investor designations by education

The variable edcl divides the SCF respondents into four groups:

• No High School Diploma/GED
• High School Diploma or GED
• Some College
• College Degree

I've abbreviated the four – but the actual numbers match the full description. Here are the baseline numbers in the 2025 SCF data:

Accredited investors by education

* Based on fewer than 30 survey families.

Qualified clients by education

* Based on fewer than 30 survey families.

Qualified purchasers by education

* Based on fewer than 30 survey families.

Investor designations by race

Race is the reference person's self-identified race, using the Fed's five racecl5 categories. (The Fed's own variable uses whoever answered the interview, sometimes the spouse, so I rebuild it for the reference person.) There are five categories in the public set:

• White Non-Hispanic
• Black/African-American Non-Hispanic
• Hispanic or Latino
• Asian
• Other¹

I've narrowed down the columns for size, but they map to the above five categories. Here are the 2025 SCF baseline numbers for all households:

¹ - 'Other' includes American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, other races, and multiple races. If you're comparing to past editions, note the 2025 survey added Middle Eastern or North African as an answer, which the Fed counts as White.

Accredited investors by race

Qualified clients by race

* Based on fewer than 30 survey families.

Qualified purchasers by race

* Based on fewer than 30 survey families.

Investor designation by age

I break down households by the reference person's age into roughly five year brackets in my net worth by age series. With the smaller sets (especially among qualified purchasers), it's safer to move to the Fed's breakdown:

• Younger than 35
• 35 to 44
• 45 to 54
• 55 to 64
• 65 to 74
• 75 and older

Here are the baseline age groups in the complete survey:

Accredited investors by age

Qualified clients by age

* Based on fewer than 30 survey families.

Qualified purchasers by age

* Based on fewer than 30 survey families.

Investor designation by family status

The SAS macros define a variable famstruct which divides households into five main categories:

• Not Married/Living with Partner, has Children
• Not Married/Living with Partner, has No Children, Reference Person Under 55
• Not Married/Living with Partner, has No Children, Reference Person 55 or Older
• Married/Living with Partner, has Children
• Married/Living with Partner, has No Children

Here are the baseline statistics for those groups (please forgive my abbreviations!):

Accredited investors by family status

Qualified clients by family status

* Based on fewer than 30 survey families.

Qualified purchasers by family status

* Based on fewer than 30 survey families.

Investor designation methodology

You can find more information on adjustments for the public set (the one I use) in the Fed's 2025 SCF Codebook and SAS macros. All details on methodology are in the original posts with the demographics layered on top:

• Accredited Investors
• Qualified Clients
• Qualified Purchasers

Demographics are for the "reference person," while the counts are PEUs. Here's what the Fed says about the reference person:

The reference person is taken to be the single core individual in a PEU without a core couple; in a PEU with a central couple, the reference person is taken to be either the male in a mixed-sex couple or the older individual in the case of a same-sex couple.

The PEU is the "primary economic unit" – roughly, the household, with a few differences. I discuss the PEU more in my net worth breakdown post.

Special designated investors in America

Because of the relatively high bar to reach most classifications, there are major differences in access to investments for different demographics. The SEC wants to expand investor access to private investment, and the demographics here show some of their reasoning.

If you're syndicating a fund or are a potential general partner, or have a business where you are raising private capital, these statistics might even suggest opportunity. It's likely that funds chase the larger demographic categories. If your product or fund speaks to an under-served community of private investors, you might have a better chance at success or out-performance.

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For past versions of this post, see here:

• 2019 (and some 2020 surveys)