How to Calculate Your Real Net Worth (and the Four Numbers Most People Get Wrong)

Net worth is the simplest number in personal finance and the one most people compute wrong. Assets minus liabilities. The trouble is in what you put on each side, and how you value it.

What counts as an asset

Everything you own that has a market value today: cash and bank balances, savings accounts, stocks and ETFs, crypto on exchanges and in wallets, your home and any other property, vehicles, watches and collectibles with a resale market, and money others owe you that you will actually collect.

What does not count: your salary (income, not wealth), points and miles (unless convertible at a known rate), and anything you could not sell within a year at a price you can name.

What counts as a liability

Every debt with a balance: mortgage, car loan, student loan, credit card balances not paid in full, money owed to family, tax you already know is due. Use today's remaining principal, not the original amount and not the total of future payments with interest.

The four numbers people get wrong

1. Counting the house at what you paid

Purchase price is history. What matters is the price a buyer would pay this quarter, minus the cost of selling. A conservative approach: a listing-based estimate, reduced by 3 to 5 percent for agency and closing costs. Lait pulls a valuation from Idealista-style comparables and keeps the purchase price next to it so you see both.

2. Counting the mortgage as separate from the house

A mortgage is a liability, yes, but it belongs to the house. If you show your property in one column and the mortgage in another, your "liquid" net worth looks worse than it is, and your "real estate" line looks better than it is. Link them: the house minus its loan is your equity, and that is the number that moves when the market does. This is why Lait links a liability to the asset it finances.

3. Counting unrealized gains as if they were yours

A stock bought at 50 and worth 100 is worth 100 today, but selling it triggers tax. If your net worth is a "what could I walk away with" figure, the honest version subtracts an estimate of the tax on the gain. It is an estimate, not a bill, and it depends on where you live. In Spain, savings income is taxed on a progressive scale from 19 percent up to 30 percent on the highest tranche, so a large gain can hide a five-figure liability. Lait shows this as a separate "if you sold today" estimate rather than folding it into the headline number.

4. Forgetting the fiat sitting inside crypto

Stablecoins and the euros or dollars on an exchange are cash, not crypto. Put them with your cash. If you count USDT as "crypto exposure" your allocation chart will tell you that you are more exposed to crypto than you are, and you will rebalance the wrong way. Lait reclassifies stablecoins and fiat balances on exchanges as cash for exactly that reason.

Liquid, semi-liquid, illiquid

Once the total is right, split it by how fast it becomes cash without a loss:

• Liquid: bank balances, savings accounts, listed stocks and ETFs, major crypto. Days.
• Semi-liquid: watches, cars, small-cap tokens, private loans. Weeks to months, with a discount.
• Illiquid: property, startup equity, pension plans you cannot touch. Months to years, or never.

Your emergency fund lives in the first bucket. Your retirement plan can live in the third. Trouble starts when the two are confused.

A worked example

Bank 8,000. Savings 12,000. ETFs 45,000 (bought at 30,000). Crypto 15,000, of which 4,000 is USDC. Flat estimated at 240,000 with a 160,000 mortgage. Car worth 9,000 with 3,000 left on the loan.

Gross assets: 329,000. Liabilities: 163,000. Net worth: 166,000. Of that, equity in the flat is 80,000 and in the car 6,000. Liquid net worth is 8,000 + 12,000 + 45,000 + 11,000 + 4,000 (the USDC, counted as cash) = 80,000. And if you sold the ETFs today the 15,000 gain would carry a tax estimate in the low thousands, depending on your region and other income.

That is one number you can act on, three you can plan with, and none you have to apologise for.