The largest migration of large fortunes in recent history is redrawing the global economic geography: southern Europe is becoming a strategic refuge for capital
Money is on the move. In 2025, 142,000 millionaires changed their country of residence, according to the annual report by Henley & Partners, the highest figure ever recorded. This was not a trickle of expatriates in search of sunshine or a handful of tycoons evading the taxman. What is happening is, in the words of the consultancy itself, ‘the largest voluntary transfer of private capital in modern history’. A silent reconfiguration of the global economic map in which fortunes no longer follow the traditional capitals of power, but rather territories that offer something more difficult to find: predictability.
I begin this series of articles for Exclusive Life Magazine by discussing a phenomenon that has ceased to be an emerging trend and has become a structural pattern. Data from the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2025, produced in conjunction with New World Wealth, reveals that the net migration of individuals with assets exceeding £700,000 has grown steadily since 2013, with a notable acceleration following the COVID-19 pandemic. That year, teleworking, early retirement and the re-evaluation of life priorities acted as catalysts for a mobility that has not stopped since.
The United Kingdom has become the most striking case. According to projections by Henley & Partners, the country will lose 16,500 millionaires in 2025 alone, the largest exodus of large fortunes on the planet. The end of the non-dom tax regime, in place for more than two centuries, has been the immediate trigger. But the erosion began earlier: post-Brexit regulatory uncertainty, wealth and inheritance tax increases announced by Keir Starmer’s Labour government, and an increasingly hostile political climate towards wealth have completed the picture. As Business Insider has reported, the wealthiest ‘used to flock to the UK; now they are leaving at a record pace’.
London, for decades the natural home of international capital, has lost that status. And it is not alone.
France, Germany and the Nordic countries have entered what analysts call a reputational risk zone. The recurring debate on wealth taxes, social polarisation and the perception of regulatory instability are creating a push effect that, according to Henley & Partners, ‘traditional advantages no longer guarantee will be reversed’.
Andrew Amoils, research director at New World Wealth and one of the authors of the report, has pointed out that the factors determining these movements go far beyond taxation. Legal certainty, political stability, quality of life, international connectivity, access to first-class education and healthcare are the criteria that, according to his research, recur in the relocation decisions of high net worth individuals.
Henley & Partners itself has summed it up as follows: the wealthy seek ‘opportunity, freedom and stability’. Luxury, in this context, no longer consists of exclusive privileges, but of certainties.
Migration and capital
Where are these fortunes heading? The answer has surprised many observers: to southern Europe. Italy has led the way with a net gain of 3,600 millionaires in 2025. Portugal has attracted 1,400 and Greece 1,200, according to the same data from Henley & Partners. Italy’s flat tax regime for new tax residents, Portugal’s non-habitual residence programme — reformulated after initial criticism — and Greece’s incentives for foreign investors have acted as effective magnets.
But the appeal is not limited to tax advantages. The Mediterranean lifestyle, institutional stability consolidated after the debt crisis of the past decade, and increasingly sophisticated infrastructure for managing large estates have turned these countries into what could be called a temperate zone: neither the regulatory cold of the north nor the opacity of certain traditional tax havens.
Southern Europe is no longer on the periphery. It is a strategic refuge.
On the other hand, areas such as the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland and Luxembourg are emerging. I recommend the book Where the Money Hides, by Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, a Swiss-Iranian-Canadian journalist, which details previously unknown aspects of these places and others, including even more inhospitable areas such as free zones where fortunes are governed by private courts of justice. Highly recommended reading.
In this context, Spain could be an unexpected protagonist or be left out. According to Knight Frank’s European relocation survey, published in September 2024, Marbella already appears among the most desirable residential destinations for high net worth individuals, on the same list as Monaco, the south of France and Verbier. Kate Everett-Allen, head of international residential research at Knight Frank, explained that political and fiscal changes are pushing large fortunes towards ‘more favourable jurisdictions’ and that the Costa del Sol has managed to position itself on this new playing field.
This data is significant because Marbella does not compete with Madrid for corporate headquarters. It competes with international enclaves to attract an elite that chooses a place of residence, not a holiday destination.
Dominic Volek, director of private clients at Henley & Partners, offered one of the most widely cited definitions of the phenomenon in an interview with the Financial Times: the migration of millionaires acts as ‘a canary in the coal mine of global change’. Where large fortunes decide to leave, he argued, a broader loss of investor confidence usually follows.
Wealth on the move
The impact of these movements transcends wealth statistics. According to Henley & Partners data for 2024, up to 20% of millionaires who move countries are entrepreneurs. Their relocation involves businesses, investment networks, job creation and, ultimately, a redistribution of the productive fabric.
The recipient countries have understood this. The United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Australia top the global list of preferred destinations, but competition within Europe has intensified. It is no longer enough to offer an attractive tax rate. Countries compete for talent, capital and innovation, and the winners are those that combine reasonable taxation with solid institutions, personal security and quality of life.
History offers precedents. In the 1990s, Ireland transformed its economy by attracting foreign investment with a corporate tax rate of 12.5%. Singapore did the same in Asia since the 1970s. But what is happening now is on a different scale and at a different speed: it is not governments that are designing the strategy, but individuals who are voting with their feet — and their wallets.
In short, the map of money has stopped following political capitals and started following climates. Fiscal, political, social and, increasingly, vital climates. Anyone who wants to read it will need a thermometer rather than an atlas.
