Study confirms migration was “modest” and drops estimates that “data does not yet support”
A report widely covered in news around the world for its claims about a global millionaire exodus and credited for the UK government’s decision to water down taxes on the superrich has today acknowledge that millionaire migration is “modest”, dropped its sole author and announced it will no longer be “producing a precise count of movements that the data does not yet support” after tax campaigners exposed several problems with the report’s methodology.1
While last year’s annual edition of the Henley Private Wealth Migration claimed a “great wealth flight” was underway globally consisting of 142,000 migrating millionaires, the latest edition published today has pulled a u-turn, acknowledging that other studies have confirmed that “departure rates among high earners were modest and concentrated in specific circumstances”, and admitting that general methods to measure migration flows have not been “validated for the specific population” of millionaires.2
A review3 published last year by the Tax Justice Network, Patriotic Millionaires UK and Tax Justice UK concluded the observations claimed to have been made by the report were impossible to observe, and a review4 by Tax Policy Associates indicated the possibility of outright fabrication after the report’s statistics failed to pass standard forensic accounting tests.
In response, Henley & Partners, the consultancy firm behind the report, announced last year an audit of its report.5 The firm has not provided any updates about the audit since then but has dropped all mentions of New World Wealth, the one-person research firm that prepared the migration estimates for the past five annual editions of the Henley report. Also dropped from the report is the widely contested, and never publicly disclosed, database of millionaires New World Wealth claimed to manage, which Henley & Partners previously defended and based its report’s estimates on.
In place of the Henley report’s previously bold and alarmist claims about ever-increasing migration numbers, the latest report is chockfull of concessions and caveats about the difficulty of tracking millionaires’ movements and admits that “many of those who formally departed continued to spend most of their time in the country”.
The latest Henley report concedes6:
“Estimates of a single country’s outflows can vary by an order of magnitude depending on which definition of ‘millionaire’ is applied and what threshold is used to classify someone as having left.”
“Determining where someone ‘lives’ is equally contested…many of those who formally departed continued to spend most of their time in the country…Program applications, similarly, often measure demand for optionality rather than realized movement: second citizenships and residence rights are widely acquired as insurance against future instability, not as declarations of intent to relocate.”
“The data gap is correspondingly wide…If even the most closely watched segment of global wealth lacks reliable residence data, the challenge is far greater for the much larger population of high-net-worth individuals. There is no harmonized cross-border register of fiscal residence, and the methods used to reconstruct general migration flows have not yet been adapted or validated for this specific population.”
On the UK in specific, while the previous Henley report claimed millionaire migration out of the UK was roughly doubling between 2024 and 2025, the latest report states that the volume of applications that Henley & Partners received for its migration services from individuals with a UK address increased by only 15% between 2024 and 2025. The report further clarifies that 44% of the applications it received from individuals from the UK in 2025 were from non-UK nationals.7
The Henley report, which coined the term “Wexit” to refer to an alleged wealth exodus from the UK, was widely credited with prompting UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves to water down planned tax reforms.8 The report’s claims were repeatedly cited in the House of Commons and House of Lords.9
In place of migration estimates for each country, the report now evaluates countries’ rule and regulations to determine their “attractiveness” to wealth. 8 of the 16 “mobility leaders” identified by the report rank among the top 15 on the Financial Secrecy Index, a ranking of countries most complicit in helping individuals hide their finances from the rule of law, or Corporate Tax Haven Index, a ranking of countries most complicit in helping multinational corporations under pay tax. These include jurisdictions like Switzerland, the Netherlands, Cyprus, Singapore and the British overseas territory the Cayman Islands.10
Rebecca Gowland, Executive Director of Patriotic Millionaires UK, said:
“Henley & Partners spent years sharing weak and misleading reports that misrepresented the reality of millionaires and migration, which was then amplified by the media. While this year’s Migration Report finally puts paid to the questionable approach they used, real damage has already been done. This is how extreme wealth buys power to influence media and politicians—and this affects everyone.
Alex Cobham, chief executive at the Tax Justice Network said:
“UK newspapers blasted a baseless scare story despite evidence to the contrary, pouring cold water on popular momentum for a wealth tax and scaring other countries off the idea. But we’ve finally got the storyteller behind the scare story to take back their hot air. We know 80% of UK millionaires support a wealth tax and we know extreme wealth is choking our economies, is making us poorer and destabilising our democracies. The UK government was hoodwinked, but it can still make sure its tax policy represents the will of its people, not the yarn of lobbyists, by beginning again to tax extreme wealth.”
Caitlin Boswell, Deputy Director at Tax Justice UK said:
“While millions are grappling with an affordability crisis that has gripped the UK, a minority of ultra-wealthy and powerful people have been using every tactic under the sun to undermine the majority who want extreme wealth to be taxed properly. All the while, wealth inequality in this country is now so out of control that the ultra-rich hold more wealth than over 34 million people combined. This is not only unfair, it’s completely unsustainable, eroding democracy and fuelling inequality. Any politician serious about turning this country around needs to get to grips with reforming the tax system, starting with a wealth tax so the very richest people pay their fair share.”
Estimates from previous editions of the Henley report have been refuted by data from tax authorities, and labelled “fake news” by the President of South Korea.11
-ENDS-
Notes to editor
- The 2026 edition of the Henley Private Wealth Migration report is available here. See our 2025 critique of the report here, as well as a summary of additional challenges from 2025 to the Henley report here and most recently the President of South Korea’s condemning of the report as “fake news” here.
- See Why Measuring Millionaire Migration Is So Difficult from the report. The 2025 edition of the Henley report is available here.
- See our review here.
- The Tax Policy Associates review is available here.
- See Henley & Partners announcement of the audit in Spear’s here.
- See note 2.
- See the report’s press release and the report’s country profile for the UK. Last year’s edition claimed that the number of millionaires supposedly leaving the UK was roughly doubling from 9,500 to 16,500 based on New World Wealth data which the latest report has dropped.
- As reported in the news at the time:
- Sky News: “Rachel Reeves is to water down her crackdown on the non-dom tax status after analysis showed it had prompted an exodus of millionaires.”
- CNBC: “The U.K. is to soften some planned changes to its controversial non-dom tax rule following concerns of a millionaire exodus, the Treasury has confirmed.”
- The Independent: “Reeves to water down tax raid on non-doms amid exodus of millionaires”
- The Times:“Rachel Reeves to relax non-dom tax rule amid millionaire exodus”
- Lord Udny-Lister, Andrew Griffith MP and Lord Leigh of Hurley cited UK papers reporting on the Henley report in parliamentary debates.
- See the Henley report’s “mobility leaders” and the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index and Corporate Tax Haven Index.
- Previous editions of the Henley report’s statistics have been contradicted by HMRC and South Korea’s National Tax Service. There report’s sole author has repeatedly walked back key claims from the report: the author admitted to the FT that the report “for years wrongly claimed to record property wealth”; acknowledged in an interview with BBC More or Lessthat the report’s sample is “skewed”; and contradicted the report’s methodology when speaking with The Korea Times by saying the report’s claims on millionaires migrating are “modeled estimates” (sic) rather than “precise counts”. President of South Korea Lee Jae Myung publicly condemned the report as “fake news” after the Korea’s Chamber of Commerce cited the report’s statistics to argue inheritance tax was driving millionaires out of South Korea. The President said: “Deliberate fake news that tries to cloud the judgment of sovereign people who make policies is an enemy of democracy”.
About the Tax Justice Network
The Tax Justice Network believes our tax and financial systems are our most powerful tools for creating a just society that gives equal weight to the needs of everyone. But under pressure from corporate giants and the super-rich, our governments have programmed these systems to prioritise the wealthiest over everybody else, wiring financial secrecy and tax havens into the core of our global economy. This fuels inequality, fosters corruption and undermines democracy. We work to repair these injustices by inspiring and equipping people and governments to reprogramme their tax and financial systems.
About Patriotic Millionaires UK
Patriotic Millionaires UK is a nonpartisan network of British millionaires, from multiple industries and backgrounds from across the UK. It delivers a single mission – to leverage the voice of wealth to build a better Britain by changing the system to end extreme wealth and make those with it make their fair and proper contribution.
About Tax Justice UK
The UK’s approach to tax isn’t working. Our government fails to raise enough money to support high quality public services and wealth is desperately under-taxed. We campaign for a fairer tax system that takes more from the very wealthy. A tax system that actively redistributes wealth to tackle inequality; and that funds high quality public services. Our mission is to ensure that everyone in the UK benefits from a fair and effective tax system. Tax Justice UK is a partner of – but independent from – the Tax Justice Network.