Debunking the myth of the “millionaire exodus”

The ‘exodus’ of millionaires was covered in over 10,900 articles were published across print, broadcast and online news in 2024. That’s 30 articles a day. Half of all this media coverage mentioned tax, often presenting tax as a driver of the claimed ‘exodus’. But the existing academic research finds that tax policies have little impact on where millionaires choose to live.

To understand the reported phenomenon and its divergence from the existing literature, the Tax Justice Network examined the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report’s finding and analysed media coverage on the report’s subject matter.

These are our three key findings.

1. Despite the headline-grabbing claims made, Henley & Partners’ own reports reveal that a millionaire exodus did not occur. The reports find millionaires to be highly immobile, with an effective near-0% rate of migration. In addition, none of the stated findings provide any evidence that tax played any role in any relocation of wealthy individuals.
2. There are serious, unanswered questions over the methodology used to generate the data in Henley & Partners’ reports; over the claims made about the results that the methodology generates; and a number of inconsistent or entirely contradictory claims. Any discussion or reporting of the findings should only proceed with considerable caution.
3. Media coverage of the Henley & Partners reports, especially in UK media, has gone far beyond any claims made in the reports themselves, contributing to an entirely unfounded narrative about the role of tax and government policies in causing a millionaire ‘exodus’ which itself did not occur. This reporting of the supposed findings is likely to have contributed to damaging policy decisions by the Labour government in particular.