Around 3,600 wealthy individuals moved to Italy in 2025. According to Henley & Partners, that puts the country third in the world for new millionaire arrivals. Only the United Arab Emirates and the United States took in more.

It is a striking number. For most of the post-2008 period, Italy was held in international portfolios at a discount. The country was understood as slow, structurally challenged, and difficult to do business in. The idea that it would now be near the top of a global wealth migration list would have surprised most allocators five years ago.

The names on the list are part of what makes the trend interesting. Richard Gnodde, vice-chair of Goldman Sachs, has moved to Italy. So has Nassef Sawiris, often described as Egypt’s wealthiest individual. Bart Becht, the former chief executive of Reckitt Benckiser, is now in Milan, as are two senior partners from the Pictet banking group who left Switzerland to be there. These are not retirees looking for a warmer climate. They are working principals and family office figures whose decisions tend to be advised, deliberate, and slow.

The Italian press has given the trend a name: svuota Londra, the emptying of London. Bloomberg has tracked it in private wealth circles. The BBC has asked, in a piece earlier this year, whether Italy has become a tax haven for the global rich. France has used the term tax dumping. The European Commission is reported to be watching. Italy has raised the cost of its flat-tax regime twice in two years.

At a glance

• Around 3,600 high-net-worth individuals moved to Italy in 2025, third highest in the world after the UAE and the United States
• Italy’s flat-tax regime, formally Article 24-bis, was raised from €200,000 to €300,000 per year on 1 January 2026
• Existing residents keep the rate they originally elected; increases are not retroactive
• Most arrivals are concentrated in Milan and are buying primary residences, not second homes
• The UK’s abolition of its non-dom regime in April 2025 has been a major driver of the trend

Why are the wealthy moving to Italy worth paying attention to?

This group is worth paying attention to because their decisions are usually slow and almost always advised. They are not infallible. They make mistakes about jurisdictions, asset classes, and the timing of their moves. But as a group, when they act in volume, they are signalling something worth reading.

The kind of person who appears on the svuota Londra list does not pick a country lightly. They have lawyers in three jurisdictions, tax advisers in two, and a private banker in each. They have spouses, children in school, and businesses that need to keep running. The cost of getting the move wrong is high enough that it is rarely made on impulse.

When this group moves in volume to one place, it tells you something. Not that the place is necessarily a good investment. Not that you should follow them. Just that a serious group of people, working with serious advisers, has looked at a particular country on its current terms and decided it is worth being in. That is a piece of information worth taking seriously, especially when the country in question has spent fifteen years being underestimated.

What are the wealthy moving to Italy responding to?

The proximate cause is well documented. Italy’s flat-tax regime, formally introduced in 2017 under Article 24-bis of the Italian Income Tax Code, allows individuals who have not been Italian tax residents in at least nine of the previous ten years to elect a fixed annual lump-sum tax on all foreign-source income. Italian-source income is still taxed at standard progressive rates. The election lasts up to fifteen years. Foreign-asset reporting obligations are waived. Inheritance tax does not apply to assets held outside Italy.

The lump sum has been raised twice. From €100,000 to €200,000 in 2024, and again to €300,000 under Law 199/2025, the 2026 Budget Law, which came into force on 1 January 2026. Each accompanying family member now costs €50,000, up from €25,000. Crucially, the increases are not retroactive. Anyone who established residency before each change keeps the rate that applied at the time of their move.

For families with significant offshore holdings, the income-tax cap is often not the dominant feature. The exemption of foreign assets from Italian inheritance and wealth tax is. Italian inheritance tax tops out at 8 percent. The UK’s stays at 40 percent.

Italy did not become attractive in isolation. In April 2025, the United Kingdom abolished its non-domiciled tax regime, a fixture of British tax law for over two centuries. The reform extended UK inheritance tax to overseas assets and introduced a ten-year tail that prevents departure from acting as a clean reset. For the roughly 75,000 non-doms previously resident in Britain, the long-term planning calculation changed substantially. Many of them looked across the Channel.

Is Italy a tax haven, or is something else going on?

Italy does not fit the traditional definition of a tax haven, and the migration pattern itself confirms this. If Italy’s appeal were purely fiscal, the inflow would look different. There are other jurisdictions in Europe with comparable or more aggressive lump-sum regimes. A purely tax-driven migration would be more dispersed across these options.

Instead, the inflow has been geographically narrow. Milan, the surrounding lakes region, and to a lesser degree Rome and parts of Tuscany have absorbed almost all of it. Milan property prices have risen 49 percent since 2017, against 10.9 percent across the rest of Italy’s major cities, according to Tecnocasa. Charles Russell Speechlys, the London law firm, has opened a Milan office, with a partner there estimating that 60 percent of the firm’s UK departing clients are heading to Italy.

The same families are also building working lives in the city. They are buying primary residences, not second homes. They are signing long-term leases, opening offices, bringing their advisers with them. Hotels, restaurants, financial services, legal infrastructure, and private banking have followed the inflow.

This is not the behaviour of people optimising a tax bill. It is the behaviour of people relocating their working lives. The fiscal regime is the entry point. It is not the explanation.

What this group has noticed

What this group has noticed, in our reading, is something the headline coverage tends to underplay. Italy is the eighth-largest economy in the world by investable financial wealth, according to Boston Consulting Group’s 2025 Global Wealth Report. It produces a significant share of the world’s luxury goods, premium food and wine, industrial machinery, and design output. It sits inside the European single market. Its rule of law and property rights, while imperfect, are recognisable to anyone arriving from a Western jurisdiction.

That combination is rare. Most jurisdictions that compete on tax do so by offering very little economic substance to live or invest inside. Italy offers the substance and the regime together. That is why the migration has concentrated in the country’s industrial and financial capital rather than in a coastal village.

The implication for an investor thinking longer term is worth holding onto. A flat tax is, by definition, time-bound and politically negotiable. The underlying economy is not. Italy’s industrial base, its concentration of family-owned businesses, its position in the European single market, and its presence in sectors with genuine pricing power are durable features. They exist regardless of what any future budget law decides about Article 24-bis.

A serious case for being in Italy should be able to survive the eventual revision of the regime. If the case collapses without the lump sum, it was never really a case for Italy. It was a case for arbitrage.

Is Italy’s flat tax going to change again?

Further changes are possible, and probably likely over the next decade, but each adjustment so far has applied only to new applicants. France has called Italy’s regime tax dumping. The European Commission has signalled that intra-EU tax competition is on its agenda. Critics inside Italy point out that the headline tax taken from the regime is small relative to the country’s overall fiscal position, and that the inflow is concentrated in a few neighbourhoods of Milan in ways that are pushing housing further out of reach for ordinary Italians. These are real concerns. Anyone considering relocation should treat them as part of the picture.

Tax regimes that attract this kind of political attention tend to be revised. Italy has already revised this one twice. The pace and shape of further changes are genuinely uncertain.

What the existing structure does provide, even with that uncertainty, is grandfathering. Each adjustment to the lump sum so far has applied only to new applicants. Families already inside the regime have kept the rate they originally elected. This materially affects the calculation for anyone considering when, rather than whether, to act.

What the signal is worth

The flat tax will keep being negotiated. The underlying economy will not. The most useful question for an investor is not whether to follow the migration but what the migration is telling you about a country that international portfolios have underestimated for a generation.

The families showing up on the svuota Londra list are doing two things at once. They are arranging their tax affairs, and they are buying into Italy. The first is the part the headlines have covered. The second is the part that, for a long-term investor, is more durable. There are several ways to take that second step, of which residency is only one. At Ariete we tend to think the more interesting question is not how to qualify for the regime, but how to hold a stake in the businesses, brands, and industries that make Italy worth being in long after any flat tax has been revised.

Frequently asked questions

How many wealthy people moved to Italy in 2025?

Approximately 3,600 high-net-worth individuals established residency in Italy in 2025, according to Henley & Partners. This places Italy third in the world for new millionaire arrivals, behind the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

How much is Italy’s flat tax in 2026?

The annual lump sum under Italy’s Article 24-bis regime is €300,000 as of 1 January 2026, raised from €200,000 under Law 199/2025. Each accompanying family member costs an additional €50,000. The increases are not retroactive. Anyone who established residency before each change keeps the rate that applied at the time.

Is Italy a tax haven?

Italy does not fit the traditional definition of a tax haven. It is the eighth-largest economy in the world by investable financial wealth, sits inside the European single market, and applies standard progressive taxation to Italian-source income. Its flat-tax regime offers preferential treatment of foreign-source income for new residents, which is closer to the UK’s former non-dom regime than to a classic offshore jurisdiction.

Why is Milan attracting most of the migration?

Milan is Italy’s industrial and financial capital and the only Italian city with the legal, banking, and corporate infrastructure to support internationally mobile working principals. Property prices in Milan have risen 49 percent since 2017, against 10.9 percent across other major Italian cities, reflecting concentrated demand from international buyers.

Will Italy’s flat tax change again?

Italy has raised the lump sum twice in two years, and further changes are possible. However, each adjustment so far has applied only to new applicants, with existing residents keeping the rate they originally elected. This grandfathering is a meaningful feature of the regime as it currently stands.