Market Insight5 min read20 August 2026By HomeHapp

The Non-Dom Exodus: What It Means for Prime London in 2026

Around 65% of super-prime London vendors in 2025 were non-doms selling their principal home and relocating, most often to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Milan, Tuscany, Monaco or Geneva. That figure comes from Beauchamp Estates' survey of £15m-plus sales. In the first half of 2026, sales above £15m rose 79% by value year on year. At the very top of the market, a new buyer base moved in fast behind the sellers.

This piece sets out what changed, who left, where they went, and — the part most coverage still misses — what has happened to demand since.

💡 Method note: This account is built from sources agents can check — Beauchamp Estates' Billionaire Buyers in London surveys (mid-year 2025, year-end 2025, and H1 2026), Savills' Prime Central London price index, the UK government's published rules, and HomeHapp's own listing data for Mayfair and Belgravia. Every source is linked at the end. Where the sources disagree — Beauchamp's year-end 65% figure versus its earlier mid-year figure of 70% — we say so and explain the likely cause, rather than quoting whichever number fits the headline. "Non-dom exodus" data ages in months, not years, so every figure below is attributed to the survey and period it comes from.

What actually changed in April 2025

Under the old regime, non-doms could pay UK tax only on the foreign income and gains they brought into the UK, for up to 15 years before being deemed UK-domiciled. From 6 April 2025 that system was replaced by a residence-based regime. People arriving after ten years of non-residence get four years' relief on foreign income and gains. After that, worldwide income and gains are taxed in the UK like anyone else's.

For a non-dom who has lived in the UK for years and built an international portfolio of income and assets, that's a materially different proposition to the one they arrived under. It's this structural shift, more than any single tax rate, that drove the exodus.

The scale of the move

Savills recorded a 4.8% fall in prime central London values in 2025, leaving prices 24.5% below their 2014 peak. It expects the market to bottom out during 2026, followed by a gradual recovery.

📊65% of super-prime vendors in 2025 were non-doms relocating abroad — Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Milan, Tuscany, Monaco and Geneva. Source: Beauchamp Estates, year-end 2025 Billionaire Buyers in London survey

⚠️ Why you'll see 70% quoted elsewhere: Beauchamp Estates' mid-year 2025 survey put the figure at roughly 70%. The gap is most likely a six-month sample versus a full-year sample, not a change in the underlying trend — but both numbers are in circulation, so check which period a source is quoting before you cite it.

The wider migration has its own numbers. Henley & Partners projected the UK would lose a net 16,500 millionaires in 2025, the largest outflow it has recorded for any country, while the UAE would gain 9,800. These are projections, not counts of completed moves.

Super-prime demand has rebounded

This is the part of the story that dates fastest, and it's the part most coverage of the exodus leaves out. In H1 2026, Beauchamp Estates recorded £1.24 billion in sales above £15 million across 34 deals — a 79% rise in value against £694.1 million across 27 deals in H1 2025. The agency attributes much of that jump to a fresh wave of Middle Eastern and American buyers, partly driven by capital moving out of the Gulf amid regional instability.

Chart: sales value of London homes above £15m rose 79% year on year, from £694.1M in H1 2025 to £1.24B in H1 2026. (Source: Beauchamp Estates)

Read together, the vendor data and the buyer data tell one coherent story at the top of the market: non-doms sold and left in large numbers, and a different, more international buyer base moved in behind them fast enough that £15m-plus sales value exceeded the prior year.

The rebound is concentrated at the top. Across prime central London more broadly, Savills still describes demand as limited since the end of the non-dom regime.

Who is buying the gap

In H1 2026, US and Gulf buyers accounted for 55% of London sales above £15 million. Beauchamp described many of 2025's buyers as bargain hunters responding to London prices that remain below 2014 levels. They are buying into a market that has corrected substantially, not chasing momentum.

For agents, that has practical implications. A vendor profile built around long-resident non-doms with UK-based advisers is being replaced by a buyer profile that's more international, often faster-moving, and frequently less familiar with the UK purchasing process — which changes what due diligence, financing and legal support need to look like on a transaction.

What HomeHapp's listing data shows

Price indices tell one story; listing behaviour tells another. HomeHapp's own tracked data for two of the postcodes most associated with the exodus:

Postcode	Sale listings tracked	Share with a recorded price reduction	On market 90+ days	As of
Mayfair	1,038	1.73%	57%	11 Sept 2026
Belgravia	947	2.64%	56.6%	15 Sept 2026

On this data, the two postcodes look more alike than the price narrative suggests. In both, more than half of sale listings have been on the market for 90 days or more, and only a small share carry a recorded price reduction. That points to vendors holding asking prices while stock sits, rather than cutting openly.

This is listing data, not achieved prices. The full methodology is in our Mayfair and Belgravia reports; for Knightsbridge, see our 2026 buyer-trends report.

What this means for agents

Vendor conversations need a different starting point. A non-dom vendor selling a principal residence very often isn't selling because of price — they're selling because their tax position changed. That changes what "motivated seller" actually looks like, and how a listing should be positioned.
The buyer recovery is real at the top, but it favours turn-key stock. Beauchamp reports that demand is concentrated on fully finished, move-in-ready homes. Don't assume the rebound lifts every listing equally if it needs significant refurbishment, or if it sits below the £15m tier where the rebound was measured.
Cross-capital fluency is now a genuine differentiator. With significant capital moving between London and Dubai in both directions, agents who can speak credibly to both markets — not just refer clients elsewhere — are positioned differently than those who can't.

💡🧭 What this doesn't cover: This is a vendor- and transaction-level read of the market, built mainly on broker surveys and price indices; HomeHapp's own figures cover listings in two postcodes, not achieved prices. We haven't independently verified the non-dom share of every sale, and Beauchamp's own figure moved by five points between two surveys taken months apart, which is a reasonable measure of how much uncertainty still sits inside "65%." It also doesn't cover the tax mechanics for any individual non-dom's situation, which vary enough that this shouldn't be read as advice for a specific move. And it's a snapshot: the buyer-mix shift described here (US and Gulf buyers at 55% of £15m-plus sales in H1 2026) is itself a live trend, not a settled endpoint — treat the H1 2026 figures as the latest read, not the final one.

London and Dubai: two different propositions for HNW property buyers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the non-dom exodus in Prime London? It refers to the wave of non-domiciled residents selling their UK principal residences and relocating abroad, largely driven by the UK's April 2025 replacement of the non-dom tax regime with a residence-based system. Beauchamp Estates' year-end 2025 survey found that 65% of super-prime vendors fit this profile.

Where are non-doms relocating to? Beauchamp Estates identifies Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Milan, Tuscany, Monaco and Geneva as the primary destinations, with Dubai attracting a particularly large share.

Has the non-dom exodus reduced demand for Prime London property? At the very top, no. Sales above £15m rose 79% by value in H1 2026 versus H1 2025, driven largely by US and Gulf buyers. Across prime central London more widely, Savills still reports limited demand, with values 24.5% below their 2014 peak.

Which postcodes are most affected? The effect is uneven and hard to read from prices alone. On HomeHapp's listing data, Mayfair and Belgravia both have more than half of sale stock on the market 90+ days, with only a small share formally reduced.

Sources

Apply for agent access at HomeHapp to see listing and time-on-market data across Prime London's postcodes.