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Wellness industry statistics and trends 2026: the numbers behind a $6.8 trillion market
By Teemu Arina ·
The wellness economy reached $6.8 trillion in 2024, according to the Global Wellness Institute's 2025 Global Wellness Economy Monitor. It grew 7.9% in a single year, sits 35% above its 2019 level and now equals 6.12% of global GDP. GWI forecasts $9.8 trillion by 2029, growing 7.6% a year against 4.5% for the world economy.
This article collects the figures we use when planning HOLOLIFE Summit: which sectors carry the money, how Europe and the Netherlands compare, what consumers say they want, and where the growth is moving. Every number has a named source, listed at the end.
The wellness industry in numbers
- Global wellness economy: $6.8 trillion in 2024, up 7.9% in a year (Global Wellness Institute)
- Forecast: $9.8 trillion by 2029, 7.6% growth a year
- Largest sectors: personal care and beauty ($1.35 trillion), healthy eating ($1.15 trillion), physical activity ($1.14 trillion)
- Fastest growing since 2019: wellness real estate (19.5% a year) and mental wellness (12.4% a year)
- Europe: $1.7 trillion, $1,876 spent per person a year
- Consumers: 84% of Americans call wellness a top priority; up to 60% across the US, UK, Germany and China rank healthy aging top or very important (McKinsey)
- GLP-1: 12% of US adults are currently on one (KFF, November 2025)
- Smart rings: shipments up 49% in 2025 (IDC)
Which wellness sectors are the largest?
Personal care and beauty ($1.35 trillion), healthy eating, nutrition and weight loss ($1.15 trillion) and physical activity ($1.14 trillion) are the three wellness sectors above $1 trillion in 2024, according to GWI. Wellness real estate and mental wellness are the fastest growing. GWI splits the wellness economy into eleven sectors, and expects six of them to pass $1 trillion by 2029.
| Sector | 2024 size | Growth a year, 2019 to 2024 | Growth in 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal care and beauty | $1,350 bn | 4.8% | |
| Healthy eating, nutrition and weight loss | $1,148 bn | 4.7% | |
| Physical activity | $1,144 bn | 4.6% | |
| Wellness tourism | $894 bn | 6.4% | 13.8% |
| Public health, prevention and personalized medicine | $676 bn | 8.6% | |
| Traditional and complementary medicine | $606 bn | 4.6% | |
| Wellness real estate | $548 bn | 19.5% | |
| Mental wellness | $268 bn | 12.4% | |
| Spas | $157 bn | 6.2% | 14.6% |
| Thermal and mineral springs | $72 bn | 1.7% | 11.1% |
| Workplace wellness | $53 bn | 0.7% | minus 1.5% |
Source: Global Wellness Institute, Global Wellness Economy Monitor 2025. Sectors overlap, so they do not sum to the total. The 2024 column is shown where GWI reports the single-year figure.
Two readings of that table. Wellness real estate and mental wellness are the fastest growers over five years, and GWI expects real estate to keep leading at 15.2% a year through 2029, with traditional and complementary medicine (10.8%), mental wellness (10.1%), thermal springs (10%), personalized medicine (9.3%) and wellness tourism (9.1%) behind it. Workplace wellness is the only sector that shrank in 2024, which matches what exhibitors tell us: the corporate buyer is slower than the individual.
Inside healthy eating, weight management products grew 6.0% a year since 2019 while weight loss services shrank 1.1% a year. GWI attributes the decline partly to GLP-1 medication, a theme we return to below.
How big is the wellness industry in Europe and the Netherlands?
Europe's wellness economy was $1.7 trillion in 2024, third behind North America ($2.3 trillion) and Asia-Pacific ($2.0 trillion), growing 6.3% a year since 2019. Europeans spend $1,876 per person per year on wellness. North Americans spend $6,029.
The Netherlands punches above its size in the categories that matter for a biohacking and longevity audience:
| Netherlands, 2024 | Market | World rank | Growth, 2019 to 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wellness real estate | $9.86 bn | 11 | 27.9% a year |
| Physical activity | $10.9 bn | 17 | 2.1% a year |
| Mental wellness | $2.39 bn | 16 | 16.7% a year |
Source: Global Wellness Institute, Global Wellness Economy Monitor 2025, country tables.
GWI names the Netherlands among the large markets whose mental wellness spending is close to or more than double its 2019 level, alongside the United States, Canada, Mexico and Australia. Dutch wellness real estate grew faster over those five years than in any other top-12 market except the United Kingdom.
What do consumers want from wellness in 2026?
Sleep, health and appearance top the list, and healthy aging is now a priority for up to 60% of consumers. McKinsey's Future of Wellness survey (2025) asked more than 9,000 consumers in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and China about six dimensions of wellness: health, sleep, nutrition, fitness, appearance and mindfulness.
- 84% of US consumers rank wellness as a top priority in daily life.
- Gen Z and millennials are 36% of US adults and 41% of wellness spending. Nearly 30% of them say they prioritize wellness "a lot more" than a year ago, against about 23% of older generations.
- Up to 60% of consumers across the four markets call healthy aging a top or very important priority.
- One consumer segment, which McKinsey calls maximalist optimizers, is about 25% of wellness consumers and more than 40% of spending.
- 42% of Gen Z and millennials rate mindfulness a very high priority.
- Use of nutritionist services rose 12% and weight loss supplements 6% since 2023.
- 56% of US buyers of wellness retreats traveled two hours or more to get there.
McKinsey puts the consumer wellness market it measures at $2 trillion. The gap to GWI's $6.8 trillion is definitional: McKinsey counts consumer products and services, GWI adds real estate, public health, tourism and traditional medicine.
What are the wellness industry trends for 2026?
Five trends have reliable numbers behind them: longevity clinics, GLP-1 medication, wearables moving to the finger, sleep as the core of mental wellness, and rising physical inactivity feeding demand.
1. Longevity clinics are multiplying, and most do not make money yet
Phil Newman of Longevity.Technology counted 320 longevity clinics operating worldwide in 2025. His survey of 82 of them, reported by MIT Technology Review in April 2025, found that 39% were profitable, 30% were approaching break-even and 16% ran at a loss. Fountain Life quoted annual membership between $10,000 and $150,000. More than a third of the surveyed clinics offered stem cell treatments, and many sold Botox (28%), hair loss treatment (35%) and facial rejuvenation (38%) under the longevity label. Andrea Maier of the National University of Singapore told the magazine that the line between longevity medicine and aesthetic medicine remains blurred.
GWI sees the same convergence from the fitness side: premium gyms are turning into hybrid clinics with preventive diagnostics, recovery and longevity medicine, which blurs the lines between spas, clinics and clubs.
2. GLP-1 moved from pharmacy to everyday life
In KFF's November 2025 tracking poll, 12% of US adults said they were currently taking a GLP-1 drug such as Ozempic or Wegovy, and 18% had taken one at some point. Use peaks at ages 50 to 64 (22%) and is higher among women (15%) than men (9%). Over half of users (56%) said the drugs were hard to afford, including those with insurance.
The knock-on effect shows up in GWI's data as the shrinking weight loss services line (GWI excludes the drugs themselves, which it counts as medical spending). For supplement, nutrition and fitness brands the question is no longer whether customers are on GLP-1, but how to serve muscle retention, protein intake and the off-ramp.
3. Wearables shift from the wrist to the finger
Bloomberg, citing IDC data in January 2026, reported that smart ring shipments rose 49% in 2025 to 4.3 million units, while smartwatches grew 6% to 163 million. The ring is still a niche in volume, but it is where the growth and the recovery, sleep and readiness use cases sit. GWI measures the broader fitness technology market at $85.9 billion in 2024, more than double its size five years earlier.
4. Sleep is the quiet giant of mental wellness
Mental wellness is a $268 billion sector. Its largest segment, senses, spaces and sleep, reached $107 billion in 2024, and GWI estimates the sleep portion alone at $73 billion, growing 12.6% a year since 2019. Brain-boosting nutraceuticals and botanicals are $93.4 billion (up 13.3% a year), and self-improvement, which includes live events, workshops, coaching and retreats, is $60.8 billion. Meditation and mindfulness is the smallest segment at $7.1 billion and the fastest growing at 18.9% a year.
5. The demand side keeps growing because people keep sitting
A WHO-led study in The Lancet Global Health (June 2024) pooled 507 surveys from 163 countries and found that 31.3% of adults, 1.8 billion people, were insufficiently active in 2022, up from 23.4% in 2000. Women (33.8%) are less active than men (28.7%), inactivity is rising among people over 60 in every region, and WHO projects 35% by 2030 if nothing changes. Every percentage point of that is a customer for the physical activity sector, which is why GWI counts more spending without necessarily more movement: much of the sector's growth is price, not participation.
Travel is the other demand signal. Wellness travelers made 1,239 million trips in 2024, 8.3% of all tourism trips and 17.6% of all tourism spending, because they spend far more per trip than the average traveler.
What do these trends mean for HOLOLIFE Summit Amsterdam?
HOLOLIFE Summit 2026 Amsterdam (14 to 15 November, SugarFactory) is the 20th edition in a series that started as Biohacker Summit in 2014. The exhibitors who do well on our floor sell into the lines above: sleep and recovery hardware, diagnostics and longevity services, functional nutrition, light and cold therapy, and the clinics and gyms that are merging into one business. The speakers who draw the biggest rooms are the ones who can show data on those same questions.
If you sell into this market, exhibit in Amsterdam. If you want to see the devices, clinics and science in one place, tickets are on sale.
Frequently asked questions
How big is the wellness industry in 2026?
The latest complete figure is $6.8 trillion for 2024, published by the Global Wellness Institute in November 2025. At GWI's projected 7.6% annual growth the market is around $7.9 trillion in 2026 and reaches $9.8 trillion in 2029. The 2025 and 2026 actuals arrive in GWI's next Monitor.
Why do some reports say the wellness market is $2 trillion?
McKinsey measures consumer wellness products and services, which it puts at about $2 trillion. GWI counts eleven sectors including wellness real estate, wellness tourism, public health and prevention, and traditional and complementary medicine, which is why its total is $6.8 trillion. Both are right for what they measure.
What is the fastest growing part of the wellness industry?
Wellness real estate, at 19.5% a year from 2019 to 2024 and a forecast 15.2% a year to 2029. Within consumer categories, mental wellness grows 12.4% a year, and its smallest segment, meditation and mindfulness, grows fastest of all at 18.9% a year.
How much do Europeans spend on wellness?
$1,876 per person per year in 2024, for a European wellness economy of $1.7 trillion growing 6.3% a year since 2019. North Americans spend $6,029 per person.
Is the biohacking market included in these numbers?
Not as a category. GWI spreads what people call biohacking across physical activity (fitness tech, $85.9 billion), mental wellness (sleep and brain-boosting supplements), personalized medicine and personal care. Wearables, supplements, sleep tech and longevity diagnostics each sit in one of those sectors.
Sources
- Global Wellness Institute, Global Wellness Economy Monitor 2025 (November 2025) and the accompanying press release. Sector sizes, growth rates, regional and Netherlands figures, mental wellness segments, fitness technology and wellness tourism.
- McKinsey & Company, The Future of Wellness trends survey 2025 (survey of 9,000+ consumers in the US, UK, Germany and China), as reported by NutraIngredients and European Spa Magazine (June 2025).
- MIT Technology Review, Longevity clinics around the world are selling unproven treatments (April 2025), citing the Longevity.Technology clinic survey.
- KFF, Poll: 1 in 8 adults say they are currently taking a GLP-1 drug (November 2025).
- IDC wearables data as reported by Bloomberg via PYMNTS (January 2026).
- World Health Organization, Nearly 1.8 billion adults at risk of disease from not doing enough physical activity (June 2024), based on Strain et al., The Lancet Global Health.