When it comes to extreme wealth, specific locations immediately come to mind — from the private of islands around Miami or sprawling towers in Dubai to the tax haven associations that are now indelibly attached to places like the Cayman Islands.
Amid the shifting around that occurred both before and immediately after the pandemic, cities like Austin and Scottsdale have also been seeing significant demographic changes with an influx of wealthy new residents.
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But according to the latest report by global wealth tracker New World Wealth and investment migration firm Henley & Partners, New York city is still the metropolis with the most wealth both in the U.S. and globally.
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The financial hub is home to 340,000 resident millionaires (the total number is rounded off to the nearest hundred). Tokyo came in second place with 290,300 people whose investments and assets top $1 million while London fell from first to fourth place with 258,000.
At a respective 285,000 and 205,400, San Francisco and Los Angeles were the other two U.S. cities to make the top ten — the wider Bay Area came third while the latter city scored sixth.
Other cities to land in the top ten include Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Sydney — according to the authors of the study, the high number of Chinese cities indicate the country's rapidly development and growing household wealth.
While Hong Kong slipped a few spots in recent years, Beijing and Shanghai only recently made the top 10. Between 2012 and 2022, the Chinese holiday destination of Hangzhou saw a 105% spike in the number of billionaires while cities like other port cities like Shenzhen and Guangzhou also saw respective growth of 98% and 86%.
"Seven of the Top 10 wealthiest cities in the world are in countries that host formal investment migrations programs and actively encourage foreign direct investment in return for residence or citizenship rights," Henley & Partners CEO Dr. Juerg Steffen said in a statement.
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Cities such as Monaco and Dubai have a very large concentration of wealth per capita but do not land in the top ten due to their smaller sizes. In 2022, the capital of the United Arab Emirates saw a record 26 real estate sales worth above $25 million.
"Traditional wealth magnets such as Monaco and Dubai have also experienced especially strong millionaire growth over the past decade," Andrew Amoils, head of research at New World Wealth, said in a statement. "The average wealth of a person living in Monaco exceeds $10 million, making it the top-ranked city on a wealth per capita basis."
When it comes to the much smaller number of residents whose total assets top $1 billion, the San Francisco Bay Area topped the list with 63 people while New York City and Beijing followed with a respective 58 and 43 residents. In Dubai, the number of resident billionaires is at 15.
"Dubai is another leading international wealth centre, with its low tax rates making it a magnet for migrating millionaires from all over the world," Amoils said. "Approximately 3,500 high-net-worth individuals moved to the city in 2022 alone."
