A new study shines fresh light on where the world's wealthy are flocking to.

Wealthy Londoners are leaving the city as new taxes mean it is more expensive to inherit and invest. Meanwhile, Britain’s divorce from the European Union is spurring rich Europeans living in the UK capital to return home. 

In recent years, successive Labour, coalition Conservative/Liberal Democrat and Conservative governments have tightened treatment of foreign-owned property, squeezed the non-domiciled residency regime, increased taxes on high-value property transactions, and increased the amount required for the Tier 1 Investor Visa regime from £1 million to £2 million. Coupled with uncertainties about what sort of Brexit deal the UK will attain, these forces have encouraged some high net worth individuals to leave the country, a study said.

These were some of the findings of New World Wealth’s Global Wealth Migration Review, placing the UK’s main financial hub in the same category as Lagos and Istanbul, both of which are also experiencing net outflows of high net worth people. Around 5,000  HNW persons exited the UK last year while only about 1,000 arrived, the report said. 

“Over the past 30 years, the United Kingdom has been one of the biggest recipients of migrating HNWIs,” the report said. “However, this trend changed in 2017 when the country experienced its first major HNWI net outflow.”



When HNW individuals leave a country, it is typically a sign of trouble in a country’s political landscape. HNW individuals are often the first to leave, because they can more easily afford to do so.

The report said, meanwhile, that at the other end of the spectrum, cities that saw high inflows of HNW individuals included Auckland, Dubai, Montreal, New York, Tel Aviv and Toronto, according to the report. 



The report focuses only on HNW individuals who have truly relocated, defined as staying in a new country for more than six months. China and India top the list of countries that the rich are leaving, but once the standard of living improves many wealthy people will likely return, the report said. 

Mumbai, India’s financial hub, is forecasted to see the biggest influx of wealth over the next decade. Wealth across the country is expected to triple over that period to around $25 trillion, followed by China’s 180 per cent increase to $69 trillion, the report says. The US will expand 20 per cent but still tops the holdings list with $75 trillion of wealth. 

Total wealth worldwide is around $215 trillion, according to the report. There are some 15.2 million HNW individuals across the world, defined as those with net assets exceeding $1 million, while the average person has $28,400. 

In Russia, the scales are tipped as 24 per cent of its total wealth is held by billionaires. Japan is the most equal, with just 3 per cent controlled by billionaires.