The escape of the millionaires: 16 thousand of them leave London. Headed to Milan (for the flat tax) and Dubai

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Leonard Berberi

In recent months several billionaires have left the British capital and moved to countries with more advantageous taxation (for them): United Arab Emirates, United States, Italy, Principality of Monaco, Switzerland

Sir Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, is worried. In recent months, several billionaires — entrepreneurs, financiers, investors — they left the British capital and moved to countries with more advantageous taxation (for them): United Arab Emirates, United States, Italy, Principality of MonacoSwiss. Rich people who should not be treated as “scapegoats”, said the mayor to Financial Timescriticizing – not even so subtly – Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer (the equivalent of the Minister of Finance).

The wealth tax

Reeves has announced the introduction of further policies that will hit the wealthy in particular, while the left wing of Labor in government calls for the introduction of a wealth tax. According to Henley&Partners, a British investment migration consultancy firm, the United Kingdom is losing millionaires and billionaires “faster than any other country in the world.” In 2024 it recorded a net loss of around 10,800 millionaires and in 2025 it estimated another 16,500, taking away almost 92 billion dollars in assets.

Tax treatment

The figures, it must be said, are questioned by other experts (who have inflated them or based them on questionable methodologies) and the real impact is debated, with HM Revenue and Customs not confirming a massive exodus. The tax treatment of the wealthy has contributed to some of these departures, according to wealth management consultants. The Labor Government has abolished, with effect from 6 April 2025, the tax regime which allowed ‘non-doms’ – those who live in the UK but have their main residence in another country – not to pay tax on overseas income.

Non-Sun residents

In 2024 the UK had around 73,700 ‘non-doms’. «Inheritance tax reforms, of that on capital gains and the introduction into the budget of a tax on luxury properties worth more than 2 million of pounds have worsened the climate», he writes The Times certainly not a centre-left newspaper. “The dismantling of the non-domiciled regime also accelerated many of the departures.”

I transfers

The result? One of the British City’s leading financiers and most successful investors, Alan Howard — co-founder of the hedge fund group Brevan Howard Asset Management — is now resident in Switzerland.
Howard, according to Bloomberg’s “Billionaires Index”, has a net worth of $4.3 billion. The real estate investors Ian and Richard Livingstone (now living in Monaco) moved in before him, private equity tycoon Jeremy Coller (in Switzerland), co-founder of digital banking app Revolut Nik Storonsky (in the United Arab Emirates), steel boss Lakshmi Mittal (tax resident in Switzerland, with plans to spend more time in Dubai), Egypt’s richest man and Aston Villa football club agent Nassef Sawiris (in Italy).

In Milan

Destination countries are preferred because they offer lower or no tax rates on income and inheritance and other tax breaks. In Italy the flat tax of 100 thousand euros, then raised to 200 thousand in 2025 and which should rise to 300 thousand for new members from 2026 — according to the Budget Law — has seen a leap in the ultra-rich, particularly in Milan. Peter Kyle, business secretary in the Starmer government, admitted in November that policies were responsible for some of the departures. “Some of the decisions” made by the Labor party since coming into government have meant “some people feel the need to leave,” he said.