The governance gap in numbers: what the 2025 and 2026 surveys show

The 2025 and 2026 surveys describe the same shape of governance gap from different angles: between half and two-thirds of family offices have an investment committee, roughly a third have a board or an investment policy statement, and well under half have a documented succession plan, a risk process that extends beyond the portfolio, or tested cyber controls. The investment function is governed; the office and the family are not. The table below lines up the comparable figures; samples, regions and question wording differ between reports.

The surveys

Six data sets carry most of the weight. UBS's Global Family Office Report 2026 surveyed 307 single family offices with average assets of $1.3bn between January and March 2026. J.P. Morgan's 2026 Global Family Office Report covered 333 single family offices in 30 countries, 59% of them in the United States, with average net worth of $1.6bn. Citi's 2025 Global Family Office Report drew 346 responses from 45 countries in June and July 2025, and its 2026 edition drew 351 from 41 countries. Bank of America's 2025 Family Office Study covered 335 North American offices. Deloitte's Family Office Cybersecurity Report 2024 and its Defining the Family Office Landscape 2024 (354 single family offices) remain the most detailed on cyber and board structure. RBC and Campden Wealth's 2026 North America Family Office Report covered 155 offices.

The comparison

What the pattern shows

Three readings follow from the table.

The first is that the investment layer is built. Every survey puts the committee above 50%, and UBS's 2026 figure of 68% with formal performance measurement is consistent with that. Where the IPS figure is low, as in J.P. Morgan's 35%, it tends to reflect offices in which the principal is the committee, a design discussed in decision rights.

The second is that succession is the largest gap and the one that is least improved. J.P. Morgan's 2026 finding that 86% lack a clear plan for key decision makers sits alongside UBS's 35% with a plan for the office and Citi's 35% with none. UBS's Global Family Office Report 2025 found 53% with a plan for family members, and among those without one, 29% said the owners believed they had plenty of time. Citi's 2026 report found roughly a third of families expect a leadership transition within five years, which does not leave plenty of time.

The third is that operational risk is governed least. UBS's 28% with a risk process beyond investments, Citi's 31% without cyber controls and Deloitte's 31% without an incident response plan describe the same offices from three directions. RBC and Campden's 2026 report, as covered by Wealth Professional, found 59% of North American offices now rank cyber as their top near-term operational concern, up from 16% a year earlier, and 73% say investment reporting is too manual.

Why the surveys disagree

Differences between reports are mostly definitional. Deloitte's 73% with a board and J.P. Morgan's 32% cannot both describe the same structure; one counts advisory boards and informal groups and the other does not. Regional mix matters too: J.P. Morgan's sample is 59% US, UBS's is 30% European and 12% US, and Citi's is 41% North American. Governance adoption rises with assets and generations, so a sample weighted towards older, larger offices will report higher figures. Citi's 2025 data, reported by WealthBriefing, show 73% of offices above $500m have an investment governance framework against 61% of smaller ones, and J.P. Morgan's summary data show family constitutions at 37% of three-generation offices against 5% of first-generation ones. Readers should compare trends within a survey rather than levels between surveys.

Direction of travel

The 2026 data contain some movement. Campden and AlTi's early 2026 findings from 126 offices show 48% have begun formally defining the purpose of their wealth, up from 33% in 2025. Ocorian's 2026 report found two-thirds of respondents reporting an increased focus on governance. The investment and administrative layers are tightening. Whether succession and family governance follow is the question the 2027 surveys will answer, and the practical content of those layers is set out in what a governance framework contains.