Colombia entered the list of countries with the largest millionaire outflows in 2025, after 150 high-net-worth individuals left the country during that year, carrying an estimated US$1 billion in liquid private wealth and extending a decade-long pattern that has already cut the growth rate of Colombia’s millionaire resident population by 15%, according to the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2025.
In 2025, approximately 142,000 people with a net worth above US$1 million in liquid investable assets, excluding real estate, relocated internationally, the largest voluntary transfer of private capital in modern history according to Henley & Partners and its partner firm New World Wealth; of that global total, 1,600 departed Latin America, with Brazil losing 1,200 and Colombia losing 150, making both countries the region’s most significant sources of outbound wealth.
Why Colombia is losing its wealthiest residents
Three converging factors drove Colombia’s 2025 millionaire outflow: political uncertainty tied to the approaching May 2026 presidential elections, an expanding tax burden on high-net-worth individuals, and the resurgence of armed groups across multiple departments, compounded by exchange rate risk that makes holding liquid assets in Colombian pesos less appealing for individuals with the mobility to denominate wealth elsewhere.
The tax dynamic is the most specific: Colombia belongs to only four countries worldwide that apply a comprehensive wealth tax, alongside Norway, Spain, and Switzerland.
After Congress struck down a proposed fiscal reform, President Gustavo Petro’s government issued Legislative Decree 1474 in February 2026, raising the wealth tax from 0.5% to 1.6% for Colombians holding liquid assets above US$2.87 million, while simultaneously lowering the entry threshold so that a broader segment of the wealthy population now falls within the tax’s reach.
Colombia ingresó al listado de los países con la mayor fuga de millonarios en América Latina https://t.co/bOQJzBFgK0 via @larepublica_co @IglesiasJulio87 @elcolombiano @Danielbricen @JDOviedoAr
— Santiago Ramirez (@arqsramirez) April 6, 2026
Costa Rica and Panama attract what Colombia pushes away
Costa Rica received 350 millionaires in 2025, bringing in an estimated US$2.8 billion in accompanying wealth, and its millionaire resident population grew by more than 70% over the past decade, a figure that reflects deliberate policy: the country charges no tax on capital gains earned abroad, applies a maximum income tax rate of 25%, and levies no inheritance tax, creating conditions that actively attract the capital in motion that countries like Colombia are generating.
Panama added 300 millionaires in 2025 with approximately US$2.4 billion in wealth, and both Central American nations top the regional destinations for departing Colombian and Brazilian millionaires, alongside the United States, particularly Florida, and Portugal; the destinations share a consistent profile of lower capital tax rates and more stable short-term political environments.
According to the Henley report, this movement carries an economic cost beyond the immediate tax loss: departing high-net-worth individuals take with them the currency inflows their assets generate, the companies they would have built, and the investment-driven employment that reaches the middle class through a multiplier effect that reverses when the investor leaves rather than arrives.
The Government’s counter-argument and the Court dispute ahead
The government’s revenue case is concrete: according to Bloomberg, if Colombia fully collects on the revised wealth tax, the country could raise an additional US$1.1 billion in 2026, a figure that supporters argue more than compensates for the liquid assets the 150 departing millionaires carried out during the prior year.
Not everyone accepts the capital flight narrative, however. Professor Gustavo Flores-Macías of Cornell University argued for the Wilson Center that concerns about massive capital flight from Colombia are historically overstated, noting that previous wealth tax increases on economic elites were absorbed without systemic disruption to investment or employment, a precedent that the government has cited in defending the February 2026 decree.
In April 2026, Colombian companies pressed the Constitutional Court to suspend Legislative Decree 1474 as a US$2.3 billion liability came due; this will show whether Colombia can hold the policy together long enough to collect the revenue it needs, or whether legal challenges, accelerating outflows, and 2026 electoral pressure will force a recalibration before voters cast their ballots.