The high tax regime in Britain has contributed to the number of millionaires in the country falling to its lowest level since the 2008 financial crash, a think tank has found.
The “millionaire tracker” from the Adam Smith Institute think tank reported this week that the number of millionaires located in the United Kingdom fell to 442,000 in 2025. This represented a seven per cent decline from the previous year and the lowest figure since the financial crisis.
The tracker, which relies on data from the British government’s Office for National Statistics (ONS), records the number of UK adults with a net worth of at least £1 million ($1.33m), including their cash on hand, investments, property portfolio, and pensions.
While the number of millionaires in the country had been on an upward trend since the tracker began keeping records in 1998, surpassing one million millionaires in 2020 and hitting a peak of 1.07 million in 2021. However, the trendline has reversed and has been on the decline since then.
This coincided with massive government spending to keep businesses shut and workers at home during the Chinese coronavirus, sparking rampant inflation and crushing economic growth.
To mitigate the expense to the treasury during the lockdowns, both the so-called Conservative and Labour Party governments that followed have imposed record levels of taxation on the nation, further stifling the ability of the economy to rebound.
This period also saw Britain leave the European Union, but the Adam Smith Institute said that while Brexit has “provided challenges” for investors in predicting the regulatory landscape, the authors said that in their estimation “Brexit has not had a significant impact on the presence of liquid millionaires in the UK.”
Rather, the capital flight experienced by the UK this decade has been mostly due to high taxation, a “hostile culture for wealth creators,” and the planned elimination of ‘non-dom’ status, which allows wealth generated abroad to be free from taxation in Britain.
The libertarian-leaning think tank warned that capital flight among the millionaire class could have far-reaching impacts, not only on the job market but also on the revenue raised to pay for key social services like the much-vaunted National Health Service (NHS). Indeed, ASI noted that the top one per cent of earners pay 29.1 per cent of all income tax collected by the state.
To reverse the trend, the think tank called for eliminating the death tax, reducing the capital gains tax, slashing red tape, and allowing money earned abroad to remain untaxed by the British government.
Commenting on the figures Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: “The biggest taxpayers are leaving the UK in droves, that means that everyone else has to pay more. The Tories started it and Labour have continued. Madness.”
Reform UK’s Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick added: “Labour’s policies are driving successful people away from Britain, as this latest report from the ASI shows. Each millionaire that leaves means less money for the NHS or defence, higher taxes for working people, and fewer good jobs. We can’t build an economy on envy. Reform will unashamedly attract successful people back to Britain.”
Adam Smith Institute Economist Mitchell Palmer remarked that although some on the political left may welcome the flight of millionaires, the leaving of millionaires in droves should instead be viewed as a “warning signal” for the economy.
“Every millionaire that leaves means less capital for British businesses, fewer international connections, and a weaker entrepreneurial spirit in the economy. Recently mooted anti-wealth proposals, such as a wealth tax or equalising the capital gains tax rate with income tax, will only make this problem worse,” Palmer said.
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