The number of taxpayers telling HMRC they are leaving the UK has risen by 32% to 69,000 in the past year, up from 52,000 the previous year.
The figures are based on the number of P85 forms filed with HMRC – the form used by taxpayers to tell the tax authority that they are leaving the UK permanently.
Accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young, which carried out the analysis using HMRC data, reckons the true figure could be higher than 17,000 as many people who leave the UK do not submit a P85 form, it claimed.
Neela Chauhan, private client tax partner at the firm, claims that more people are leaving the UK due to the increases in taxes under the last Government and concerns that the trend for higher taxes will continue.
She pointed out that since the last General Election, there have been significant increases in capital gains tax, inheritance tax and employer’s national insurance contributions, as well as higher Stamp Duty on rental properties and VAT on private school fees. IHT will also be levied on unused pensions from April.
She said another factor driving departures from the UK is the replacement of the non-dom regime, which she said has made the UK less attractive to internationally mobile individuals than countries offering more competitive regimes, such as Italy and Switzerland.
Ms Chauhan said: “More and more people are looking at the ‘tax deal’ they get in the UK and deciding they can do better overseas. That’s as true for working people who do not consider themselves wealthy as it is for business owners.”
She said that one major draw for people in moving overseas is a less-harsh inheritance tax regime than we have in the UK.
She said: “We’ve seen more people choose to move to Sweden, for example, where there is no inheritance tax at all.”
• Source: HMRC. The data compared the tax year 2025/26 with the tax year 2024/25.