One year into the UK’s revised non-dom regime, the consensus seems to have hardened: the rich are leaving, international wealth is migrating to more favourable jurisdictions, and the UK’s financial services sector faces contraction.
The evidence on the surface appears straightforward, from international students opting elsewhere, to former non-doms liquidating super-prime property at discounts. A steady capital outflow appears inevitable.
Yet beneath this headline exodus lies a significant countertrend; one that advisers overlooking it risk missing entirely: citizenship and residency applications from the US are at record levels.
The reforms introduced in 2025 removed a long-standing advantage by dismantling the remittance basis, which had allowed foreign income and gains to sit outside the UK tax net under tightly controlled conditions. For many international wealth individuals, that structure, while cumbersome, was a strong incentive to reside in the UK.
However, this didn’t necessarily apply to Americans, who are taxed on their worldwide income regardless of where they live. For US citizens, relocating to the UK was less a question of whether tax would be paid, but how complicated the process of managing it would become.
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The new structure changes the nature of that trade-off. While it removes some of the previous advantages, it also removes much of the operational strain that previously constrained financial decision-making. For US citizens under the new regime, it is now far easier to manage, access and spend their wealth in the UK. In effect, one of the biggest barriers to US relocation to the UK has been removed.
And this shift is being accelerated by the broader macroeconomic environment. Recent tensions between the US and Iran have brought turmoil to global markets and taken the shine off the Middle East’s newer wealth hubs. Historically, these periods of uncertainty drive capital (and people) towards stable, well-regulated markets with deep liquidity — attributes London still possesses in abundance.
Early signs suggest this shift is already feeding through. Rachel Reeves visited Washington earlier in the year, where she actively attempted to re-engage with American wealth departing the Gulf for more stable pastures. Sotheby’s reported strong demand from affluent Americans relocating to London throughout 2025, a trend expected to continue throughout 2026; and reports of renewed interest in London’s prime property from Gulf buyers does not hurt either.
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None of this is to suggest the current exodus narrative is entirely misplaced. The reforms will remain a deterrent for certain categories of non-dom, particularly long-term residents who previously benefited from the remittance basis. But the idea that the UK is simply losing its appeal overlooks how the market is evolving.
For wealth managers and advisers, this shift has the potential to be significant. UK citizenship applications from US nationals hit record levels at the end of 2025, and this growing cohort will live in the UK, need to manage US tax obligations, and may even hold assets across other jurisdictions.
The advice they will need will not sit neatly within a single framework, and cross-border support is going to become essential for any adviser looking to be competitive in the market.
Technical knowledge will also only be part of the answer. US Internal Revenue Service reporting requirements leave little room for error, and firms will need the operational infrastructure to support clients across two (or more) systems simultaneously. Smooth running of such processes, especially while offering the level of access and transparency rapidly becoming standard across the industry, is going to require a level of co-ordination that is far from universal across the market.
Still, the crux of the matter is that the UK wealth story is becoming selective, not simply weaker. Some forms of international wealth may be leaving, but other pools of capital are reassessing the UK for exactly the same reasons.
Advisers that only focus on the exodus risk missing clients whose needs are becoming more complex and commercially significant; the opportunity now is to help US-linked clients turn life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness into good ol’ practical cross-border advice.
Martyn Johnson is chief operating officer at Multrees Investor Services