London’s exodus of millionaires over the past decade may have been as damaging as the United Kingdom losing nearly 1.5 million taxpayers, analysis for The Standard suggests.
The capital has lost 30,000 millionaires to foreign countries since 2014, with more than 11,000 leaving in the last 12 months alone.
It means that, over the ten-year period, an average of eight millionaires left the country every day, the study conducted for the advisory firm Henley & Partners by New World Wealth found.
The exodus has been attributed to tax rises under the Conservative and Labour governments, economic uncertainty following Brexit and the fall in the value of the pound.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ crackdown on non-domiciles — people who live in the UK but have their permanent tax address registered abroad — has also sent the super-rich packing.
According to research by the Adam Smith Institute, each of the millionaires who left the capital over the last decade would have paid at least £393,957 in income tax per year.
The free-market think-tank claims one millionaire’s tax payment is comparable to 49 average taxpayers leaving the UK.
Therefore, the Exchequer may be facing a shortfall in revenue equivalent to 1.47 million average taxpayers leaving the country.
That is roughly more than the population of the regional capitals of Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast combined.
Alessandro Georgiou, City Hall Conservatives' economy spokesman, said: "Labour's job tax and disastrous budget has crashed the economy and is now driving wealth creators from the country.
“We want a London, and indeed a Britain, where people can earn money and contribute to our economy without fearing punitive measures that seek to just use them as cashcows."
And Maxwell Marlow, Director of Public Affairs at the ASI, commented: “The UK’s wealth exodus is accelerating. More and more millionaires are choosing to pack their bags and head to more welcoming shores, driven away by the abolition of non-dom status, and an ever-rising tax burden.
“Already struggling with soaring energy costs and stagnant productivity, this trend spells trouble for the future of the UK economy.”
He added: “The UK was the birthplace of capitalism and free trade.
“We must not allow it to become yet another cautionary tale of self-inflicted economic decline.”
NWW said the millionaire exodus has also been driven by the “dwindling” importance of the London Stock Exchange and Britain’s failure to recover from the 2008 recession.
Only Moscow — which has been punished with Western sanctions amid Vladimir Putin’s 2022 illegal invasion of Ukraine — has lost more wealthy residents proportionally since 2014 than the UK.
In total, London — which now has around 215,000 millionaires — has lost 12 per cent of its wealthiest residents since 2014, while Moscow has lost 25 per cent.
However, in absolute terms, London has lost more millionaires than anywhere else, with about 30,000 departing the city over the past ten years, compared with 10,000 fleeing Moscow.
From the 1950s to early 2000s, Britain, and London in particular, was one of the world’s top destinations for migrating millionaires and it has been popular among rich families from mainland Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
They are now leaving London for rival cities such as Paris, Dubai, Singapore and Frankfurt, says Andrew Amoils, NWW’s Head of Research.
Mr Amoils also suggested the current levels of capital gains tax and estate duty rates may have deterred wealthy business owners from residing in London.
“It’s worth noting that most of the companies on the FTSE 100 were started by centimillionaires, so the loss of these individuals has a massive impact on an economy,” he said.
Prominent high net-worth figures who have left London in recent years include Egypt's richest man Nassef Sawiris, steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal and German crypto investor Christian Angermayer.
The Treasury has been contacted for comment.
