UK Millionaires Settling Abroad: Why could wealthy Britishers vote with their feet in UK elections today? – Investing Abroad News

On May 22, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced sudden elections in the United Kingdom, which will take place on July 4. Brits leaving the country to relocate to other countries has remained a heated topic of conversation, particularly among wealthy residents.

The UK is anticipated to experience an extraordinary net loss of 9,500 millionaires in 2024, behind only China and more than double the 4,200 who left the country last year, which was itself a record following the departure of 1,600 high-net-worth people (HNWIs) in 2022.

This is the finding of The Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2024, released by international investment migration advisory firm Henley & Partners, which exclusively features the latest net inflows and outflows of millionaires or HNWIs with liquid investable wealth of USD 1 million or more.

The UK, and London especially, has traditionally been seen as one of the world’s top destinations for migrating millionaires and for many years (from the 1950s to early 2000s) it consistently attracted large numbers of wealthy families from mainland Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

However, this trend began to reverse around a decade ago as more millionaires began to leave the country and fewer came in. Notably, during the six years from 2017 to 2023 post-Brexit, the UK lost a total of 16,500 millionaires to migration. Provisional estimates for 2024 are even more concerning, with a massive net outflow of 9,500 millionaires projected for this year alone.

Commenting in the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2024, Dr. Hannah White OBE, Director and CEO of the independent think tank the Institute for Government in London, says “The outflow already generated by the economic and political turmoil in Britain risks being accelerated by further unwelcome policy decisions ahead of the election.

On top of the 40% duty already imposed on estates above a GBP 325,000 threshold, the Conservative government has adopted the thrust of the Labour opposition’s policy of ending the UK’s non-dom tax regime from 2025.

And for those educating their children in the UK’s well-regarded private school sector, Labour’s commitment to remove their exemption from 20% VAT is a further unwelcome development.”

Spear’s Contributing Editor Alec Marsh agrees, saying “even before the starting gun was fired on July 4’s general election, it’s apparent that the wealthy in Britain are already voting with their feet. The writing was on the wall well before Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, sought to take the wind from the sails of the Labour opposition by announcing in March that he would be scrapping Britain’s 225-year-old non-dom tax regime, which allows those with extensive wealth overseas not to be taxed on it in the UK.

While it may have been clever politics, it was a red flag for the global wealthy elite, who saw Britain’s right-of-center party suddenly prepared to play fast and loose with the established rules affecting them for short-term political gain.”

According to the ranking of the world’s top 15 countries for millionaires published in the report, the number of millionaires in the UK has dropped by 8% over the past decade — while soaring elsewhere. In Germany, the HNWI population has increased by 15% over the last 10 years, in France it’s up 14%, while the number has risen by 35% in Australia, 29% in Canada, and an astonishing 62% in the USA.

These growth rates are of course a product of several factors including new business formation, local stock market gains and prime property trends in each country, with millionaire migration also being a significant contributing factor, especially in the case of Safe Haven.