Millionaire Exodus: Where the World's Wealthy Are Moving in 2026, and Why It Matters

Published on: June 6, 2026

Quick answer: A record 165,000 millionaires are projected to relocate internationally in 2026 (up from 142,000 in 2025), according to the Henley & Partners Private Wealth Migration Report. The UK now leads the outflow ranking with a projected net loss of about 16,500 in 2025, driven by the closure of the Tier 1 Investor Visa and the abolition of the non-dom regime, while the UAE is the top destination at roughly +9,800. For property investors, the key shift is that "buy property, get residency" is no longer a Europe-wide default, Portugal ended its real estate route and Spain scrapped its golden visa, leaving the UAE, Greece, Turkey, and a few others. Note the headline counts are proprietary estimates, not official records, and independent analysts have contested the methodology, treat them as directional.

A record 165,000 millionaires are projected to relocate internationally in 2026, according to the Henley & Partners Private Wealth Migration Report. That is up from 142,000 in 2025 and 134,000 in 2024, and it would make 2026 the largest single-year movement of private wealth ever recorded. Put differently: on every working day of 2026, more than 600 high-net-worth individuals are expected to pack up their families, their companies, and their capital and move to a different country.

This is the phenomenon the press has labelled the "millionaire exodus." But the story is more layered than the headline number suggests, and parts of it are genuinely contested. This guide covers what is actually happening, who is winning and losing, why the wealthy move, how it is reshaping cross-border real estate, and where the data deserves a healthy dose of skepticism.

What is the "millionaire exodus"?

The millionaire exodus refers to the accelerating trend of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), people with USD 1 million or more in investable wealth, changing their country of residence. The most-cited tracker is the annual Private Wealth Migration Report produced by the investment-migration advisory firm Henley & Partners together with the wealth-intelligence firm New World Wealth.

The data counts net flows: the number of millionaires who relocated to a new country and stayed for longer than six months, measured each year since 2013. A "net outflow" means more millionaires left a country than arrived; a "net inflow" means the reverse. It is worth flagging up front that the figures are estimates and forecasts built on a proprietary methodology, not official immigration statistics, a point we return to in detail below.

How fast is wealth migration accelerating?

The trajectory is the clearest part of the story. Wealth migration was climbing before the pandemic temporarily suppressed global mobility in 2020–2021, then rebounded sharply:

Henley's leadership frames this as a structural shift rather than a post-pandemic blip, the movement of private wealth has become, in their words, a defining feature of the international economy. Whether the precise counts are reliable or not, the direction is consistent across every recent source: more wealthy people are relocating, more often, and more deliberately.

Who is losing millionaires?

The United Kingdom: the new cautionary tale

For the first time in the decade Henley has tracked the data, the United Kingdom topped the global outflow ranking, with a projected net loss of roughly 16,500 millionaires in 2025, the largest single-year outflow attributed to any country since tracking began. Secondary coverage of the report put the combined wealth leaving the UK at around USD 91.8 billion.

The drivers are overwhelmingly framed as fiscal and policy-related:

• The closure of the Tier 1 Investor Visa in February 2022.
• The abolition of the non-dom regime, announced in 2024, replacing the old remittance basis with a residence-based system from April 2025.
• Inheritance tax reforms taking effect in April 2025, bringing long-term residents' worldwide assets into scope.
• Additional increases to capital gains tax and changes to business and agricultural relief.

Wealth managers report a surge in relocation enquiries from UK-based clients, particularly business owners exploring the UAE. The UK has become the headline example of a broader tension: governments trying to raise revenue from the wealthy while remaining attractive to the very people who can move their assets most easily.

China: a decade at the top

China is the second-largest source of outbound millionaires, with a projected net outflow of around 7,800 in 2025. Notably, China had led the global outflow ranking every year of the previous decade, so the UK overtaking it is itself a milestone. Chinese outflows are generally attributed to capital-control pressures, slowing growth, and the search for asset diversification and lifestyle alternatives.

Other developed economies appear on the outflow list too, though, as the skepticism section explains, some of the smaller figures (such as a reported net loss of just a few hundred from Germany) have been openly disputed by practitioners on the ground.

Who is winning the world's wealth?

The United Arab Emirates: the magnet of the era

The UAE retained its position as the world's leading wealth destination, with a record projected net inflow of around 9,800 millionaires in 2025, comfortably ahead of the United States in second place. Dubai alone is forecast to attract more than 7,000 new millionaires in 2026, bringing an estimated USD 7 billion in fresh capital, and broke into the global top-20 wealthiest cities in 2026 after sitting outside the top thirty a decade ago. Across the decade, the UAE's millionaire population has grown by roughly 98%, and Dubai's by around 102%.

The appeal is structural rather than circumstantial: zero personal income tax, the UAE Golden Visa, an expanding Premium Residency pathway, world-class infrastructure, and an explicit national strategy to attract global capital and talent.

The United States, Saudi Arabia, and Asia's hubs

The United States ranked second for inflows, with much of the movement concentrated in low-tax states such as Florida. Saudi Arabia was the biggest riser, projected to gain around 2,400 millionaires as returning nationals and international investors settle in Riyadh and Jeddah. Italy continues to draw HNWIs through its flat-tax regime for new residents. In Asia, Singapore remains a magnet for affluent families, while Hong Kong (≈ +800) and Japan (≈ +600) are gaining ground on the strength of stability and investor-friendly frameworks. Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland round out the list of established safe havens.

Why do millionaires actually move?

Tax is the headline, but it is rarely the whole story. The recurring motivations cluster into push and pull factors:

Push factors, rising or uncertain taxation (income, capital gains, inheritance), political instability, regulatory unpredictability, currency risk, and concerns about safety or the business environment.

Pull factors, favourable or predictable tax regimes, political and economic stability, quality of life and climate, world-class education and healthcare, strong property rights, and mobility itself: a second residence or citizenship that widens visa-free travel and provides a credible "Plan B."

The framing that has gained traction in 2026 is the shift "from a Plan B to a portfolio of plans." Wealthy families increasingly treat geographic diversification the way they treat asset diversification, not as an emergency hedge, but as a standing strategy.

The crypto wealth dimension

A new and fast-growing migratory class deserves its own mention. Henley's Crypto Wealth Report 2025 identified roughly 241,700 crypto millionaires worldwide, a 40% jump in a single year, including about 145,100 Bitcoin millionaires (up 70%), 450 crypto centi-millionaires holding more than USD 100 million in digital assets, and 36 crypto billionaires. Strikingly, close to 94% of this group is under 40.

Their relocation patterns are tax-structured and digital-first, clustering around jurisdictions with clear crypto tax treatment and strong infrastructure: Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland's canton of Zug, Portugal, Puerto Rico (under Act 60), Malta, and increasingly the Caribbean. This cohort matters because it is young, mobile, and largely unencumbered by the physical-asset ties that anchor traditional wealth, making it the most location-flexible capital in the world.

How the millionaire exodus is reshaping real estate

For cross-border property investors, the most consequential part of the exodus is where the capital lands, and the residency rules that channel it. Migrating wealth doesn't just move people; it moves demand into specific housing and commercial markets, and increasingly that demand is steered by residency-by-investment ("golden visa") programmes.

Crucially, the relationship between migration and property is being rewired in 2026. Europe is moving away from direct real estate routes, while other jurisdictions are doubling down on them:

The takeaway for investors is that "buy property, get residency" is no longer a Europe-wide default. The cheapest and most direct real estate routes now sit in the UAE, Greece (at the right price tier), Turkey, and a handful of others, while Portugal and Spain have effectively pushed property buyers toward funds or out of the residency conversation entirely. For a cross-border buyer, knowing which markets still convert a purchase into residency, and at what threshold, is now as important as the yield itself.

But is the exodus actually real? A necessary reality check

This is where a comprehensive picture has to slow down. The headline numbers are widely repeated by Bloomberg, Forbes, and politicians in parliamentary debates, but they are also seriously contested, and an honest analysis has to say so.

The numbers are estimates, not counts. The figures are forecasts and provisional estimates built on a proprietary model, not official records of who actually emigrated.

Independent analysts have challenged the methodology. A forensic review by Tax Policy Associates concluded the reports "can't be trusted," pointing to internal inconsistencies. One example: the methodology reportedly dropped property wealth between 2023 and 2025, yet the millionaire counts barely changed, and when pressed by the Financial Times, New World Wealth acknowledged that property was never actually included in the analysis, despite earlier reports stating otherwise.

The percentages are smaller than the headlines imply. A net loss of 16,500 represents roughly 1% of the UK's ~600,000 millionaires by Henley's own liquid-asset definition (around 2.7% of a narrower subset). Against broader estimates that put the UK's total millionaire population near three million, the figure is a fraction of a percent, significant, but not the "avalanche" the framing can suggest.

"Millionaires" and "non-doms" are not the same population. The UK has roughly 21,000 non-doms (many of whom aren't millionaires) versus around 300,000 residents with USD 1 million or more in liquid assets. The Office for Budget Responsibility projected that about 25% of the wealthiest, trust-using non-doms and 12% of others might leave, a different question from how many "millionaires" relocate, and one the migration report doesn't directly answer.

Some country figures look implausible to practitioners. Wealth advisers have publicly called figures like a net loss of only a few hundred from Germany "absurd," arguing the true numbers are several multiples higher, which cuts in the opposite direction and suggests the model may understate some flows even as it dramatizes others.

There's a blind spot the report misses. Critics note the data obsesses over HNWIs while ignoring the migration of high-earning professionals (people earning £150K–£500K who pay substantial income tax). In tax systems heavily dependent on the top few percent, that professional flight may matter more fiscally than the movement of paper millionaires.

And there's an incentive to be aware of. The report is produced by an investment-migration advisory firm. Skeptics characterise it, not unfairly, as partly a marketing instrument for the residence- and citizenship-planning industry, and a "data-lite talking point" engineered to generate coverage. That doesn't make the underlying trend false, but it does mean the precise figures should be read as directional indicators, not gospel.

The honest synthesis: something real is happening. Multiple independent signals, surging relocation enquiries, the UAE's documented population growth, concrete tax-policy changes in the UK, all point the same way. But the specific counts are softer than they appear, the "millionaire" framing obscures a messier reality, and anyone making a decision off these numbers should treat them as a weather vane, not a measuring tape.

What it means for investors, advisors, and agencies

A few practical implications follow from the picture above:

For investors, the exodus is less a reason to panic and more a map of where capital, infrastructure, and policy are aligning. The jurisdictions winning the wealth race, the UAE, parts of Asia, select European markets, are also where property demand, liquidity, and residency optionality are concentrating. Diversification across borders is increasingly a baseline strategy rather than an exotic one.

For real estate professionals and agencies, the rewiring of golden visa rules is a live opportunity. Demand is migrating toward markets where a purchase still converts into residency, and toward buyers who think in terms of yield and mobility. The agencies and platforms that can speak to both, pricing, yield, tax treatment, and residency eligibility in a single view, are the ones positioned to capture this flow.

The deeper lesson of the millionaire exodus is that capital has become extraordinarily mobile, and it rewards the places that combine stability, openness, and a clear value proposition. For everyone else, watching where the wealthy go remains one of the more honest leading indicators of which markets are about to matter.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many millionaires are leaving in 2026?

A record 165,000 millionaires are projected to relocate internationally in 2026, up from 142,000 in 2025, according to the Henley & Partners Private Wealth Migration Report. These are forecasts based on a proprietary model, not official emigration statistics.

Which country is losing the most millionaires?

The United Kingdom, with a projected net loss of around 16,500 in 2025, the largest single-year outflow recorded for any country since tracking began in 2013, ahead of China at roughly 7,800.

Where are millionaires moving to?

The United Arab Emirates leads (≈ +9,800 in 2025), followed by the United States, with Saudi Arabia the fastest riser. Italy, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand also attract significant inflows.

Why are millionaires leaving the UK?

A sequence of tax and policy changes: the closure of the Tier 1 Investor Visa (2022), abolition of the non-dom regime (effective April 2025), inheritance tax reforms (April 2025), and increases to capital gains and other taxes.

Can I still get residency by buying property?

In some countries, yes. The UAE, Greece (at the right price tier), Turkey, Malta, Cyprus, and, via funds, Hungary still offer property-linked routes. Portugal ended its real estate route in October 2023, and Spain closed its golden visa programme in 2025.

Are the millionaire migration numbers reliable?

They are useful as a directional signal but should be read with caution. Independent analysts have challenged the methodology, the percentages are smaller than headlines imply, and the report is produced by a firm with a commercial interest in the investment-migration industry.

Sources: Henley & Partners Private Wealth Migration Report 2025 and 2026 forecast; Henley & Partners Crypto Wealth Report 2025; New World Wealth; UK Office for Budget Responsibility; Tax Policy Associates forensic review; and 2026 golden visa programme guidance. Figures are estimates and forecasts and should be treated as directional indicators.

JanusHermes is a cross-border real estate intelligence platform covering 50+ countries. This article is for informational purposes only and is not investment, tax, or legal advice.

A note on the numbers: where no source is named, the market figures in this article (prices, yields, costs) are indicative estimates compiled from publicly available market data and industry reporting at the time of writing. Markets move and rules change, so treat them as a starting point and verify current figures with official sources before acting on them.