Around 15,000 millionaires are expected to leave Russia this year—and the United Arab Emirates is set to see a big influx of wealth, according to a new analysis.
London-based Henley & Partners, which helps high-net-worth individuals seek citizenship around the world, partnered with New World Wealth to conduct the research.
Henley’s Private Wealth Migration Dashboard covers 62 countries and tracks the movement and spending habits of more than 150,000 wealthy individuals.
The latest installment of the company’s Global Citizens Report updated projections for the migration of people with wealth of more than $1 million, described as high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs).
Russia currently has 101,100 millionaire residents—but 15,000, or 15% of them, are expected to leave the country this year, according to Henley’s projections.
That makes Russia the country expected to lose the most HNWIs in 2022.
Russia—and many of its wealthiest people—have been hit hard by economic sanctions since the country’s forces invaded Ukraine in late February.
China is projected to see an exodus of 10,000 millionaires this year, according to the data.
However, its proportional loss is expected to be much lower than Russia’s.
The country has 823,000 HNWI residents, according to the report, meaning China is only expected to lose 1% of its millionaire population in 2022.
The report predicted that a total of 88,000 millionaires would migrate to a different country this year—a figure that was expected to rise by more than 40% to 125,000 in 2023, marking the highest HNWI migration reported by Henley since it began its records in 2013.
India and Hong Kong were expected to see around 2% of their HNWIs leave in 2022, while Ukraine was projected to lose 42% of its millionaire residents.
Meanwhile, the UAE was projected to see an inflow of 4,000 millionaires this year, according to Henley and New World Wealth’s latest data.
Around 3,500 millionaires were expected to move to Australia, with Singapore, Israel, and Switzerland rounding out the top five countries receptors of the world’s wealthy.
Dr. Juerg Steffen, CEO of Henley & Partners, said in a statement that many of the world’s wealthiest people were “reassessing where best to locate themselves, their families, and their assets as a hedge against the widely anticipated regional and global volatility that lies ahead.”
Noting that millionaire emigration is damaging to the economies and real estate markets of the countries they leave behind, Steffen added that “the unique confluence of war, climate crisis, and pandemic have created new pressure points globally.”
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