Britain must compete to keep its wealthy as countries like Oman offer greater stability, lower taxes and less crime, says Damien Phillips
In her speech to close the Conservative conference, Kemi Badenoch’s claim that Britain’s “super wealthy… have all gone” might have been a rhetorical flourish but the exodus of our millionaires is real and is only going to get worse
Britain suffered a tenfold increase in high-net worth individuals fleeing high-tax Britain in just three years, losing around 1,600 millionaires in 2022 and an estimated 16,500 in 2025. Earlier this week, property tycoon David Reuben who shares a family fortune of £28bn, confirmed he had quit the UK for Monaco. In September, we lost hedge-fund billionaire Chris Rokos to Greece. Barely a month seems to go by without another prominent millionaire deciding that Britain is hostile territory for them.
Recent analysis of the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index, which didn’t even include Reuben’s departure, showed that ultra-wealthy people worth roughly £121bn have left Britain since Labour came to power in 2024 – this represents more than half of the billionaire wealth associated with the UK.
Competing jurisdications
Many countries like Italy, Switzerland and Monaco are luring them away with a simple proposition – come here and you can preserve your wealth. Switzerland is selling certainty and capital preservation, while Italy allows new residents to avoid being taxed normally and instead pay a €300,000 annual lump sum on foreign income for up to 15 years.
Others, like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Singapore and the United States combine favourable treatment of wealth with enormous opportunities to deploy it. For founders and investors, the US offers vast pools of venture capital, highly liquid property markets, tech clusters and enormous consumer demand. Many of those leaving Britain want to create new wealth, not just protect what they have, hence why the US poached 7,500 UK millionaires in 2025 alone.
Research suggests that global competition for millionaires is also as much about security as it is about tax and opportunities for growth. Wealthy families are looking for places where they and their children feel physically safe and where the political and legal environment is predictable. With nearly nine in ten Brits believing crime and anti-social behaviour are a major national problem and 67 per cent feeling that crime has become worse in the past year, Britain is increasingly unattractive to anyone who doesn’t have to stay here.
To our chagrin, governments are now actively sharpening their bids to the mobile wealthy and combining all three of these elements into a single deal. Henley’s Wealth Report 2026 singled out Qatar, Bahrain and Oman as “broadening their offerings” as competition for international capital and talent intensifies.
Oman for instance, whose Sultan is headed to Britain later this month for a state visit, launched a renewable 10-year Golden Residency programme last year aimed at business owners, entrepreneurs and investors that allows them to bring their families and creates a stable, long-term base from which to own, invest in, and run businesses in the country.
With no income tax and very efficient development, in the World Competitiveness Rankings in 2026 Oman rose to 25th in the world out of 70 economies – just one place behind the UK. On top of this, it ranks third in the world for perceived safety, with 94 per cent of residents saying they feel safe walking alone at night.
This is the kind of multifaceted package that Britain is now competing against. Yet instead of upping our game, we are talking about yet another tax raising Budget, while Labour-aligned voices call for a wealth tax. The millionaire flight will simply intensify because, as Michael Corleone puts it in The Godfather Part II, Britain’s offer is this: “Nothing”.
Damien Phillips is a fellow of The Cobden Centre and a regular contributor to The Spectator. He has written for CapX, The Critic, ConservativeHome and The Telegraph