The west loses its rich, the east rolls out the red carpet.
My forecast: 1.1 million millionaires leave the West by 2030, taking $3 trillion with them, more than the GDP of Italy walking East
The tax bomb by 2030: the West loses $1.2 to $1.5 trillion in tax income on that departed wealth, money that paid for pensions, hospitals, and schools, now taxed in Dubai at 9% instead of Paris at 45%
It is already running: 142,000 millionaires moved in 2025, 165,000 forecast for 2026, 200,000 a year by 2028, 250,000 a year by 2030, the largest wealth migration ever measured
The losers and the winners: the UK lost 16,500 millionaires in 2025, the largest single-country outflow ever recorded, France, Germany, and Spain bleed for the first time in history, while the UAE takes 9,800 in 2025, the US 7,500, Saudi Arabia 2,400, 8 times more than in 2024, and Dubai hands 10-year golden visas even to creators
Every year in Tanzania and Kenya, millions of wildebeest cross the Serengeti in the Great Migration, the biggest movement of life on earth. They move for 1 reason: survival, toward water, grass, and safety. Right now the same instinct drives the biggest movement of wealth in human history. The herd is people, and it is heading East.
I made this call on stage in Riyadh a year before the data proved it: the wealthy leave the West, and not only for tax reasons. The East understood what the West forgot: talent and capital go where they are welcomed.
The tables confirm it. 142,000 millionaires moved countries in 2025, the largest wealth migration ever measured, Henley forecasts 165,000 for 2026. The UK lost 16,500 in 1 year, the biggest single-country outflow ever recorded. France, Germany, and Spain bleed rich citizens for the first time in history.
Why do they go? Count the benefits like a migrating herd counts water. Dubai: 9% business tax, 0% on your income, and a 10-year golden visa, handed even to creators and influencers. Panama taxes only what you earn inside the country. Paraguay makes residency cheap and fast. Add safe streets, borders that are enforced, affordable world-class healthcare, and governments that protect builders instead of punishing them. The West rolls out exit taxes, the East rolls out red carpets.
Behind it sits the gravity shift: the BRICS economies produce $31.9 trillion a year and build their own payment rails outside the Western system. The money map of the world is redrawing, and people follow the map.
I forecast 1.1 million millionaires out by 2030, taking $3 trillion with them, more than the GDP of Italy walking East. Now do the tax math the West refuses to do: Western states take 40 to 50% of money over a lifetime, so by 2030 the West has lost $1.2 to $1.5 trillion in tax income on the departed wealth, the money that paid its pensions, hospitals, and schools, now taxed in Dubai at 9% instead of Paris at 45%. Chase the builders out, and you do not collect more tax, you collect nothing. This is not greed, it is survival instinct, and wealth has a long memory: what leaves does not come back.
Early call
