UK loses more billionaires than any other country

The UK has lost the most billionaires of any country in the world in the last two years, fresh data has shown, exacerbating fears that Britain’s footloose super-rich residents would continue to flee the country if forced to pay a wealth tax.

According to updated numbers from New World Wealth, the UK lost a quarter of its billionaire population over the course of 2023 and 2024, the highest share of any major economy including sanction-hit Russia.

The country lost 18 billionaires to other jurisdictions over the two-year period, researchers said, taking the total number residing in the UK down to 72 by the end of 2024.

The figure is considerably higher than the 12 that quit second-placed China and the 10 that left India, which suffered the third largest exodus. Russia lost eight billionaires overall; the second-highest in percentage terms.

The findings will also not include the more recent high-profile departures from the UK of steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, chemicals tycoon Nassef Sawiris, or property investors Richard and Ian Livingstone.

All four billionaires left Britain since the start of this year, after the government announced a host of punitive tax rises targeted at the country’s wealthiest taxpayers, including abolishing the non-dom regime, applying VAT on private school fees and raising the top rate of capital gains tax.

Marc Acheson, global wealth specialist at Utmost Wealth Solutions, told City AM that a series of decisions by consecutive governments meant the findings were “unsurprising”.

“This outflow began in March 2024 when the Conservatives announced the end of the resident non-dom regime and then accelerated at pace following the measures announced at the Autumn Budget,” he said, adding: “As an internationally mobile group, they have the means and most incentive to leave.

“They are moving rapidly to countries that are competing aggressively to welcome them with more attractive regimes.”

Wealth tax could drive more billionaires from UK

The figures also bring into sharp relief growing fears that a wealth tax would accelerate the rate of departures from Britain, after a deluge of warnings from tax lawyers and wealth advisers that the UK is losing its wealthiest residents at a record rate.

Keir Starmer and his spokesman have refused to rule out a blanket levy on wealth forming part of the government’s upcoming Budget, as he and Chancellor Rachel Reeves look to plug a roughly £20bn hole in the public finances without raising any taxes on “working people”.

As recently as April, Reeves vowed she would not impose any new wealth taxes in the Autumn Budget.

“We’re not interested in a wealth tax,” she told The Telegraph. “Our priority is to grow the economy and that’s the way that you make working people better off and secure better public finances.”

Since then, the Treasury has been forced to weather a storm of higher state spending commitments, including higher borrowing costs and several expensive U-turns like the £4bn decision to row back from welfare reforms.

Economists remain sceptical that a blanket tax on wealth would generate meaningful revenues for the Treasury, with some of the opinion that the levy could cost the Exchequer money overall.

Paul Johnson, the outgoing director of the non-partisan Institute for Fiscal Studies, has previously said that implementing the levy would be “practically impossible”.

And pointing to failed attempts in other countries, Tax Policy Associates boss Dan Neidle said it would be “arrogant” of the Labour Party to assume it would work in Britain.