Christina Georgaki is the founder and Managing Partner of Georgaki and Partners Law Firm. 

Struggling European economies are sending a clear message to their wealthy citizens: cough up, or take off. British multi-billionaire Chris Rokos’ recently announced exit from the UK is the latest in an exodus of high-net-worth individuals fleeing Britain as the nation ends its cosy non-dom tax regime.

He joins Goldman Sachs Vice President Richard Gnodde, Aston Villa Co-Owner Nassef Sawiris and Checkout.com Founder Guillaume Pousaz, who have all left the UK over the last two years to seek warmer, more fiscally generous climes.

It is no wonder the British Government is feeling frustrated. Faced with the highest borrowing costs for long-term debt since 1998, Chancellor John Healey has pledged to create a “buffer against uncertainty” for bond markets at the Autumn Budget, either by cutting public spending, which his Treasury seems resistant to, or raising taxes. Neither is an attractive option at a time when British tax as a share of GDP is already at its highest level since 1947.

Wealthy Brits have had enough uncertainty, and the same is true of millionaires across Europe, likely with dire consequences for the public purse. Last year, Henley and Partners estimated that the UK, France, Germany, and Spain saw net emigration of a combined 18,500 millionaires, representing a total economic loss of $100 billion in assets. Increasingly, Europe’s rich understand that they must be willing to move to protect their wealth, and that warmer climates can be as beneficial to their wellbeing as the mythical sub-twenty-minute commute was in the early 2000s.

Recently-departed Hedge Fund Manager Rokos has managed to combine the two. Not only is he headed to Greece, where the average year-round temperature is  29°C, he is also reportedly opening a new office for Rokos Capital Management in Greece.

Rokos has targeted Greece as his next office location because, over the last decade, it has singled itself out as the most attractive safe harbour in Europe for wealthy non-doms looking for generous tax incentives. Its Golden Visa system offers Rokos indefinite right to remain in the country alongside a property purchase of €800,000 in Athens, although property purchases elsewhere in the country can do the same for as little as €250,000. Residents are then charged a maximum of €100,000 on all non-Greek income; no other European country comes close to this. Italy, for example, will charge three times the annual fee that Greece does for residency under its scheme from next year.

Greece watched in glee as its country’s comparatively cheap cost of living and rapid economic growth drew 1,200 millionaires in 2025, boasting around $7.7 billion in assets. Millionaires are attracted by the country’s luxury property, and ripe investment markets coupled with one of the most enduring and well-known historical cultures in the world.

Let’s not forget that Greece wants to be attractive to the rich because it benefits, through tax on goods, job growth, local business investment and, critically, through skill transfer. Rathbones research indicates that the biggest losses for wealthy entrepreneurs in the UK were in the technology sector; the critical fulcrum on which the country is hoping to base its economic recovery. In the game of attracting wealthy international migrants, the losers are clearly the countries that have elected not to play.