How much does a single family office cost to run?
The best recent benchmark is UBS's Global Family Office Report 2025, which surveyed 317 family offices with an average family net worth of $2.7 billion. Those offices reported that the pure cost of running the office (people, systems, premises, legal, and research) averaged 41.1 basis points of assets under management in 2024, slightly above the 40.3 basis points they had budgeted.
That figure excludes the money spent on investment managers, banks, and external legal structures. In UBS's data, those categories made up about 43% of total spending, so the full bill is meaningfully higher than the running cost alone.
What does that look like in dollars?
UBS broke the 2025 running-cost projections out by the size of the office.
| Assets managed by the office | Projected running cost (UBS) | In dollars, at the bottom of the range |
|---|---|---|
| $100–250 million | 0.418% | $418,000 at $100M |
| $251 million–$1 billion | 0.424% | $1.06 million at $251M |
| Over $1 billion | 0.355% | $3.55 million at $1B |
Running cost only: excludes investment management, banking, and external structure fees. Dollar figures are the percentage applied to the bottom of each range, for illustration.
Two things stand out. First, costs barely improve between $100 million and $1 billion; real economies of scale show up only above $1 billion. Second, complexity costs more. Offices whose families also own an operating business projected 44.9 basis points, against 33.0 for those without one. Offices serving second and later generations projected 44.0, against 36.8 for first-generation offices.
Where does the money go?
Mostly to people. In UBS's survey, the pure cost of running the office broke down like this:
| Cost category | Share of running cost |
|---|---|
| Staff | 67% |
| Legal and compliance | 10% |
| Physical infrastructure | 8% |
| IT and technology | 7% |
| Research | 5% |
| Other | 4% |
Projected 2025 split, UBS Global Family Office Report 2025.
The average office in the survey employed 12 people. That is the core of the economics: a family office is mostly a team, and a team costs about the same whether the portfolio is up or down.
Why does the math get hard below $100 million?
Because a family office's biggest costs are fixed, the cost as a percentage of assets rises quickly as assets fall.
Take a single senior hire. In Heidrick & Struggles' 2025 compensation survey, U.S. family office chief investment officers reported a median cash base salary of about $560,000, before bonus.
| Assets | One CIO's base salary as % of assets |
|---|---|
| $50 million | 1.12% |
| $100 million | 0.56% |
| $250 million | 0.22% |
| $1 billion | 0.06% |
Base salary only. Excludes bonus, benefits, other staff, systems, and premises.
At $50 million, one salary costs more than the entire running budget of an average office in the UBS survey, measured as a share of assets. And a CIO alone is not a family office: someone still has to run reporting, administration, tax coordination, and governance.
What are the alternatives?
Families that want family-office structure without family-office overhead generally choose among three models:
- Multi-family office. Several families share one team and one set of systems. Costs are spread out, but families are usually clients of the firm rather than owners of their own structure.
- Outsourced or virtual family office. A coordinator oversees a network of external specialists. Flexible, but quality depends on who is quarterbacking.
- Dedicated office on a shared platform. Each family owns its own family office entity, board, and governance, and the platform supplies the staff and systems underneath. This is the model 2SIX Partners uses.
What should a family compare?
Cost in basis points is only part of the decision. Before choosing a structure, a family should be able to answer:
- Who owns the structure? If the relationship ends, does the governance stay with the family?
- Who is accountable for the whole balance sheet? Not each piece, the whole.
- What is fixed and what is variable? A standalone office is mostly fixed cost; shared models can match cost to the services used.
- Who will run it in 10 years? Key-person risk is real in a small standalone office.
- What does the next generation inherit? A structure they understand and can govern, or a staff they did not choose?