As more states have begun to introduce wealth taxes, billionaires and other ultrawealthy individuals have been forced to make the hard choice between sucking it up and paying the bill or moving elsewhere.
Those who have chosen to dodge proposed wealth taxes in states including California and Washington have flocked to Florida. Billionaire Californians face a one-time 5% tax on their net worth, so some, including Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, left California for Miami.
Washingtonians who make at least $1 million will also face a flat 9.9% tax starting in 2028, and executives once based there, like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, have also left for Florida.
Florida has become a safe haven for the ultrawealthy because it has no state income tax, and it’s also solidified itself as an epicenter of luxury and lavishness. Plus, they’re free from the burden of a wealth tax. Three of the primary localities where the ultrawealthy are flocking include Miami, Palm Beach County, and Naples.
How much are billionaires saving by moving to Florida?
Florida has no state income tax, no capital gains tax, and no wealth tax, but the math on how much billionaires or the ultrawealthy save by living there is a bit more complicated. That’s because the ultrawealthy’s income typically comes from a stock sale or a dividend rather than a salary. Take Larry Ellison, for example. By making an estate in Palm Beach County his primary residence before selling Oracle stock, the billionaire saved an estimated $1 billion in taxes, according to Forbes.
Wealth taxes hit assets like stocks, real estate, and art rather than income, as MIT Sloan notes.
But the wealth tax is still what garners the most attention. California’s Proposition 40 would slap a one-time 5% levy on the net worth of billionaires who lived in the state after Jan. 1 this year. Fortune’s Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez previously estimated the departures of billionaires like Page and Brin could cost the measure some $29 billion of the $100 billion it’s after.
So the wealth tax is what encouraged some billionaires to move, but the income and capital-gains taxes they’ll never pay again are what keep them there.
Miami: the billionaire bunker
Miami is where wealth migration is most prominent: 19 of Florida’s 20 richest billionaires officially reside there. Many of them cluster on the same guarded islands like Indian Creek (a.k.a. Billionaire Bunker), where Bezos has assembled a property compound worth more than $230 million. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Page, and Thiel also live there.
Citadel’s Ken Griffin also moved his hedge fund’s headquarters to the city, and Page has spent more than $180 million building a compound in Coconut Grove. Meanwhile, Miami’s millionaire population has grown 94% in just a decade, to nearly 40,000, according to Henley & Partners’ World’s Wealthiest Cities in 2025 report.
“It’s one of the best cities in the entire world,” Miami developer Robert Rivani recently told Fortune. “It’s just a great place to live. It’s a great political landscape for people who want to expand, raise families, and that leads to having great real estate growth. All the big guys [are] moving down here.”
Palm Beach County
Palm Beach County has also become a major wealth hub. Larry Ellison made a 16-acre Manalapan estate his primary residence, about 10 miles from Mar-a-Lago. Griffin has also poured about $450 million into a waterfront compound in the county. Meanwhile, Citadel, BlackRock, and Goldman Sachs all have expanded there, earning the area its “Wall Street South” nickname.
The wealth has piled up fast. Between 2014 and 2024, West Palm Beach and Palm Beach saw their millionaire population jump 112%, which is the fourth-fastest growth of any city in the world, according to Henley & Partners. The Business Development Board of Palm Beach County counts roughly 60 billionaires countywide.
Naples
Naples, long a popular retirement destination, also continues to attract vast amounts of wealth. It attracts what’s seen as passive wealth, or retirees and heirs who prioritize golf, privacy, and beaches. Forbes, which in June called Naples the place “where America’s new ‘old money’ hides,” notes it’s frequently cited as having one of the highest concentrations of millionaires per capita in the country.
Several billionaires also live in Naples and nearby Marco Island, including Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan, who is worth about $13.3 billion. Two of the six priciest neighborhoods in America by price per square foot—Port Royal and Aqualane Shores— also sit in Naples.
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