To own Private Jet or

 What should be your net worth to own a private jet?

This is my gut feel:

To completely own a private business jet which is flown by professional pilots and you are merely a passenger: The total purchase price should be one percent or less than your net worth.

Otherwise charter when required.

On the other hand, if you own a small jet that You pilot, then the cost could be as much as 5%. That is because maintenance and other costs are much higher than owning an expensive sports car.

●Depends, if u have an operating company or not. If u have decent revenue and good margins you could buy one if you had 50 million in sales and much lower net worth. Huge tax incentives. U can buy a 2000 model Citation II¹ for 600k. 340k a year to operate. 

(¹ Cessna planes prices, click here )

●Since most people don't know what a private jet costs, probably most helpful to estimate both purchase price and operating cost

●With all due respect many of these answers make no sense without knowing what the intended use is. If one is flying transcontinental you’ll need a GIV² or Citation X to make the trip reasonably comfortable. Assuming fractional ownership (owning 100% with pilots and crew on salary makes no sense unless you are flying constantly) you will pay $10,000 - $15,000/hour + fuel surcharges. That means you will spend $75k - $100k to fly from ³ Los Angeles to New York, not including cost of capital on the initial investment plus monthly maintenance charges. One round trip a month puts you in the $2 million/year range (maybe more). We also need to know if this is business or personal travel for tax purposes. Forgetting tax, how much would you need to earn on an annual basis to be comfortable spending $2mm+/year on travel? I would say at least $20 million (annual income, not net worth). $20 million nets $10 million after-tax. Depending upon ones’s other expenses (houses, cars, clothing, jewelry, private schools, etc.) allocating 20% of $10 million net after tax seems possible. Converting this to net worth (assuming you are not bringing in wage income) you probably need $250 million net worth (assuming you can average 8% return annually over time) to feel comfortable spending that kind of money. 

(² Gulfstream planes sale price here) (³ The distance between Los Angeles (Los Angeles International Airport) and New York (New York John F. Kennedy International Airport) is 2475 miles / 3983 kilometers / 2151 nautical miles. Flight time duration : 5 hours 11 minutes.

The driving distance from Los Angeles (LAX) to New York (JFK) is 2829 miles / 4553 kilometers, and travel time by car is about 50 hours 19 minutes.

Time Difference : 3 hours.  More details here.)

●There’s no validity to what you’re saying. 1 percent of $1 billion is $10 Million. Surely, a billionaire can spare more than $10 million on a private jet. It’s all relative.

•Exactly.

•Exactly. Maybe 10% is a better number…

●You know the old saying: If it flies, floats or f*cks, rent it don’t buy it.

●You can buy a Cirrus Vision Jet⁴ for about $2M US and learn to fly it yourself. A net worth, not including your residence, of about $20M should be enough. Less than that, fly commercial - 1st class of course. (⁴ CVJ sale price here )

●Isn’t the entire purpose of a private jet to free up more time in which you could be getting things done? In that case flying coach seems like a better option than piloting your own jet. If you are in it for the thrill of being a pilot,  a T-34⁵ or similar seems like a much better option. (⁵ watch this movie on YouTube , click here ) ( Russian price tag here )   ($230,000 for one T-34 tank here )

•That would be 10%. With operating costs, it would eat into that net pretty good. 1% of $200m would be $2m

•Sure, you could fly it yourself, but that’s like driving your own limousine.

●Respectfully suggest that the question is wrong.

One should ask what the value of owning your own private jet is, relative to the cost of alternative transport.

If using a private jet is superior in value to other alternatives, then one examines if its more economical to use a service like NetJets or to own a jet.

If the answer is to own a jet, then you decide if that is the best investment you can make with the capital you plan to deploy.

Value measurement should include cash and the cash costs as well as benefits.

Using measures of cost relative to net worth do not seem to be a good guide.

●Factor in $5K per your in operating expenses for a small size, 6 seats, twin engine jet, certified for a single pilot operation. If you fly 100 hours a year that’s half a million dollars in operating expenses.

If you can justify business use then you paying in pretax $ and based on your needs to get into small airports on your own schedule this maybe justify the expense. So if your business generates a minimum $2M in profits before taxes you probably going to be OK. Actual acquisition costs are less important IMO as you can get a nice second hand jet under $1.5M what is equivalent of 3 years of operating expenses.

If you are a hobbyist who wants to fly and pilot own jet I would say you should have $50M in investable assets. That should generate $2–3M annually before tax. Anything else and you will feel jet poor.

Things get much more affordable flying single engine turboprop like Piper 500 or TBM 700. If your topical mission is under 1000 miles and you can self pilot your aircraft the operating costs will be $1000 per hour. Quite affordable with income around $700K.

●There is really no set percentage. First of all, there are many private jets to choose from so lumping them all in one category, does not make any answer absolutely correct. A private jet can cost anywhere from in the hundreds of thousands to even $50 million.

Secondly, you can choose to keep this private jet under management company, which reduces the operating costs for the owner and provides tax breaks for them as well. So now you have some of the operating costs offset from revenue.

Lastly, unless you are very very wealthy, it makes sense to see what type of ROI you will receive versus the alternatives. Jet ownership is really for people who fly a lot of flight hours and need something more than a fractional or charter, due to flexibility.

•How about: If you have to ask you cannot afford it.

•yeah but they know they cant afford it theyre setting goals for themselves which you clearly seem not to understand

•Good reply but maybe he is asking so that he can set his goals in life, I applaud him in this case.

●HNWI of 20M+ should consider aircraft ownership if they fly a minimum of 100hrs per year. Of course not one size fits all but the 100hr baseline is where you will see a lower TCO (effective hourly rate) v. the alternative of ad hoc charter or membership programs. If you are flying at least 25hrs per year you should consider membership programs.

●You know what is funny? Even for non-HNWI people looking at C172s⁶, etc. the flip between being in a flying club (or renting) vs. owning is somewhere about 100 hours, or maybe a little more, per year. (⁶ Cessna price about $250,000 to ½ million  dollars here )

●The fact that you have to ask that Question suggests you don’t have the net worth. Those who owns jets don’t ask others , they just buy them

•Why can’t someone be curious about what it costs even if they can’t afford it? Did they say they wanted to know because they are thinking about buying one??

•By that logic someone worth $5 billion can only afford a $50 million plane? No. He can afford multiple of those.

●Let’s keep this simple, if it raises your debt to income ratio over 35%, then you shouldn’t buy it. Also, that includes everything from the purchase to the operating cost. The lower the debt to income ratio after the purchase the better. This can be used for any amount of income.

●What about owning a helicopter? 

(helicopter sale price  here)

●I say you should have a net worth between$10 to $20million dollars at least

●1% !?!  

so by that formula, to buy a $6M jet, one would need to be mega super wealthy - to the tune of $600M?

●yeah, I guess that’s probably pretty accurate

●If it flys or floats rent it when you need it but don’t buy it.

●I’ve heard people who own private jets do so as a business. They use the jet only a fraction of the time, so it can sit idle for large periods of time. They use that down time to rent out the jet to help pay operating expenses, and since it’s part of the business the amount paid can be depreciated over a period of time. Do you happen to know how common that is? It would seem to make a private jet far more affordable.

●That can certainly make sense. And since Covid started it’s been great business. However if there’s a major downturn in private jet hire, you’ll be wanting to sell it just as values have crashed..