Where the World’s Wealthy Are Moving in 2026
165,000 millionaires are expected to relocate internationally this year. Most of them are not chasing a dream. They are buying options.
That number comes from Henley & Partners, whose annual private wealth migration report has become something of a barometer for how nervous the global rich are feeling at any given moment. In 2025, 142,000 high net worth individuals moved countries. This year the projection climbs again, and the pattern underneath the headline figure is more interesting than the total.
This is not a story about tax fugitives or oligarchs parking money offshore. The people driving these numbers are founders, investors, and senior executives who have watched political cycles tighten, inheritance rules shift, and schooling options narrow. They are not necessarily leaving. Many of them are adding. A second residency, a long stay structure, or a properly established base in a second country now sits alongside property allocation, succession planning, and tax exposure on the same spreadsheet.
Asia, for reasons that are specific rather than vague, is taking a larger share of that conversation.
The Exit Map Right Now
The United Kingdom is bleeding wealth at a pace that has started to embarrass its own treasury. The non-domicile rule changes that took effect in April 2025 removed a tax advantage that had made London attractive for internationally mobile families for generations. The UAE is absorbing a significant portion of that outflow. So is Italy, through its flat tax regime for new residents, which caps foreign income liability at 100,000 euros annually regardless of what you earn abroad.
The United States remains a top destination for arrivals despite its global taxation system, which catches Americans wherever they live and makes renouncing citizenship a genuinely expensive and complicated process. What that means in practice is that wealthy Americans moving abroad often maintain their U.S. tax obligations regardless of where they establish residency , a structural reality that shapes how they approach second residency differently from, say, a British or Australian passport holder.
Australia and Canada are seeing net outflows. Singapore continues to consolidate.
What Asia Is Actually Offering
Singapore’s position is not built on a single visa programme. It is built on trust infrastructure , legal system, banking stability, educational institutions, and a business environment that takes contracts seriously. The Global Investor Programme, which requires a minimum investment of S$2.5 million into approved funds or businesses, is one formal entry point. But many wealthy families arrive through employment, business operations, or the establishment of a family office structure, of which Singapore now hosts more than 1,100 following regulatory clarification in 2023.
The city is not cheap and does not try to be. Housing costs have moderated slightly from their 2023 peak but remain among the highest in Asia. What you get in return is a place that functions, consistently, across healthcare, schooling, and financial services. For a family thinking about where to put a long-term anchor, Singapore is the region’s most credible answer.
Thailand operates differently and serves a different need. The Long Term Resident visa, introduced in 2022, allows stays of up to 10 years for qualifying applicants across several categories including wealthy individuals who can demonstrate 80,000 USD in income annually or assets of at least 1 million USD. The fees are modest relative to investor programmes elsewhere. What Thailand offers is time and access , the ability to spend extended periods in the country without committing to a permanent structure. Bangkok has a healthcare system that handles complex cases well and costs a fraction of comparable treatment in Singapore or Hong Kong. Chiang Mai attracts a different profile: quieter, lower cost, with an international school infrastructure that has improved considerably over the past decade.
Malaysia’s Malaysia My Second Home programme, known as MM2H, went through a significant overhaul in 2021 that tightened financial requirements substantially, then softened again in revised guidelines issued in 2023. Current requirements include a minimum monthly offshore income of 40,000 ringgit, a fixed deposit of 1 million ringgit, and liquid assets of 1.5 million ringgit. That puts it in a different bracket than it once occupied , less of a retirement programme, more of a serious long stay option for people who have the balance sheet for it. Kuala Lumpur is a functional, underrated city with good international schooling, strong private healthcare, and a cost of living that remains well below Singapore’s.
Residency as a Planning Tool
The reframe that matters most here is not geographic. It is structural. A second residency is not a lifestyle upgrade. It is a hedge against concentration risk , in the same way a portfolio spread across asset classes is more resilient than one concentrated in a single market, a family with residential options in two or three jurisdictions has more flexibility when politics, taxation, or personal circumstances shift.
The questions worth asking before pursuing any of these routes are concrete. How much time do you actually want to spend there, and does the visa require a minimum number of days that conflicts with your existing obligations? How liquid does your qualifying investment need to remain, and over what period? Does your succession plan require residency or domicile in a particular jurisdiction? Are you moving with children whose schooling continuity matters, or is this a bolt hole for now with longer plans attached?
A second residency is not a lifestyle upgrade. It is a hedge against concentration risk.
The answers shape which structure fits. A founder who wants banking access, business credibility, and a home for a family office is looking at Singapore. Someone who wants 10 years of flexibility and the option to spend winters in Southeast Asia without making a permanent call is looking at Thailand. A family with a longer horizon, real estate interests in the region, and a tolerance for the paperwork involved is worth talking to an adviser about Malaysia.
None of these routes are static. Thresholds move. Governments revise programme conditions, sometimes quickly. The MM2H history is a useful reminder of that. Anyone treating this as a planning priority needs current advice from a licensed immigration or wealth structuring professional, not a general article , including this one.
What the Smartest Movers Have in Common
They are not making romantic decisions. I have spoken to enough people who have done this , in Singapore, in Bangkok, in Kuala Lumpur , to know that the ones who navigate it well are the ones who treated it like a financial decision first and a lifestyle question second. They had a reason beyond the weather. They understood what they were giving up. They did not assume that residency meant tax residency, and they did not assume that a visa was a substitute for actual legal planning.
The ones who struggled were the ones who moved fast, moved on instinct, and discovered six months later that their home country’s tax authority had a different view of where they were resident than they did.
165,000 people are making this move in 2026. Some of them are doing it well.
