Only 42% of couples in long-term relationships combine all of their money into joint accounts, while roughly 1 in 5 keep their finances completely separate, according to a new Fidelity Investments study of 3,193 married or partnered U.S. adults.
The survey, fielded by Versta Research between October and November 2025 among couples together at least three years, suggests full financial merging is no longer the default, and generational lines are the clearest divide.
Key Points
- 42% of couples combine all their money into joint accounts; about 20% keep everything completely separate, per Fidelity’s data.
- 34% of Gen Z couples and 26% of Millennial couples prefer to keep their accounts fully separate, compared with 19% of Gen X and just 15% of Baby Boomer couples, per coverage from CBS News Philadelphia.
- Among Baby Boomers, more than half keep everything joint, nearly the mirror image of the youngest couples surveyed, WRAL reported.
- Two-thirds of respondents say maintaining some financial autonomy in their relationship matters to them, according to Fidelity.
- 58% of couples say they don’t contribute equally to household finances, and nearly 1 in 4 say that imbalance affects their relationship.
The split isn’t purely about control. Fidelity’s data shows many millennial couples are landing on a middle path: separate individual accounts alongside one shared account for joint bills, a hybrid WRAL found more than 40% of millennials in the survey say they use.
Where the numbers get more uneven is around conversation, not account structure. Sixty-nine percent of couples say they aren’t regularly discussing long-term finances like retirement or investing, and fewer than 1 in 3 regularly talk through day-to-day financial decisions. Half of respondents say they wish they talked about daily finances more often.
“Approaching conversations together, early and often, can help partners build greater trust” and stay aligned on shared priorities, said Amanda Lott, head of Financial Planning and Advice Capabilities at Fidelity, in the company’s release.
The generational slide is fairly linear: separate-account preference rises with every step down in age, from 15% of Boomers to 19% of Gen X to 26% of Millennials and 34% of Gen Z. Fidelity’s researchers frame it as evidence that younger couples are entering shared life with a different starting assumption than their parents did about what “merging finances” even means.
The findings track with a broader generational shift in how couples define financial partnership: less about merging everything on day one, more about deliberately choosing what stays shared and what stays individual.
