Millionaires are heading to the UAE, but the route to office demand is indirect

Henley & Partners forecast a net 9,800 millionaires arriving in the UAE in 2025, the largest inflow it tracked, yet that number says little about offices. The link runs through regulated entities that set up in one of Dubai's free zones and then hire. Those entities need space. That makes private capital a source of office demand, when the money turns into a team.

What do the migration numbers actually say?

The best-known source is Henley & Partners. Its Private Wealth Migration Report 2025 projected a net inflow of 9,800 millionaires to the UAE for 2025. That was the largest inflow on its list. The same release projected a net outflow of 16,500 from the UK.

Two cautions apply. These are forecasts, not recorded results. And the release does not describe the model behind them, so we cannot test the method.

The 2026 edition changed course. According to the 2026 release, Henley replaced inflow and outflow counts with a Wealth Mobility Competitiveness Score across 12 weighted dimensions. The UAE scored 85.3. Henley says the score measures structural factors, not migration flows.

That is why we use the 2025 forecast, labelled as a forecast, and no other migration figure.

Henley adds a useful detail in the 2026 release. Enquiries from UAE-based individuals rose 41% between Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, and applications for alternative residence or citizenship rose 29%. The publisher says most of this demand comes from people using the UAE as a base, not seeking to leave it. Dominic Volek, its Group Head of Private Clients, is quoted: "The UAE story in 2026 is one of diversification and optionality, not an exodus."

For offices, that matters. A base means people who stay, work and hire. A hedge means a licence and little else. The two produce very different demand for floors.

How does a millionaire become an office tenant?

Individuals rarely lease offices. Entities do. A family sets up an office to manage its wealth. A manager sets up a fund and hires analysts. Each step creates a legal entity and, sooner or later, a need for space.

Henley & Partners counts 81,200 resident millionaires in Dubai, including 237 centi-millionaires and 20 billionaires, and puts the city's millionaire growth at 102% between 2014 and 2024. We found no public count of family offices or wealth managers in Dubai that does not come from a free-zone authority, so we do not size that layer.

These are counts of people, not of firms or floors. They show where the demand can come from. They do not show how much space it takes.

Why do the caveats matter?

A registered entity is not the same as an occupied office. A family office can exist as a licence and a mailbox. A fund manager can run a small team from a serviced desk. Only some of these will lease a dedicated floor.

That gap matters for landlords who plan around the headline. If migration numbers drive a leasing plan, the plan may run ahead of demand. If entity counts drive it, the plan is closer to the market, but still short of the floor.

We would test the link directly. Ask advisers how many of their relocating clients took dedicated space within a year, and how many stayed in flex space.

Is private capital also an office buyer?

Possibly, and the evidence is thin. Wealthy families invest in property, and offices can suit a long hold. But we found no opened source that counts family-office purchases of Dubai offices, so we do not size the trend.

Capital also flows the other way. Wealth that sits in the UAE can buy abroad. We leave that to the companion article on Gulf capital in European offices.

Look at it from the tenant's side. A family office in a Dubai free zone needs a licensed entity, a few staff and a quiet address. It may start in a serviced office and move to its own floor when the team reaches a size it can fill. A fund manager may follow the same path with a larger team. The move from desk to floor is the event that matters for landlords, and it is the one the headline numbers cannot show.

What would show the link is real?

Four signals would settle the question:

• Dedicated floors leased by family offices, beyond desks.
• Free-zone entity growth running alongside office absorption in the same buildings.
• Fund managers moving from flex space to their own floors.
• Headcount growth in regulated firms, beyond new licences.

The evidence has limits. We do not claim that wealth flows have no effect on offices. We claim that the effect is indirect, slow and uneven. A family that arrives this year may lease a floor in two years, or never. A manager that registers today may hire fifty people, or five.

For landlords, the sensible response is to track the entities that matter, not the headline. Ask which regulated firms in your building grew headcount, which moved up from flex space, and which left. That is a smaller dataset than a migration report, but it is yours, and it is closer to rent.

For occupiers, the lesson runs the other way. Landlords know the headlines too, and some price as if every arrival will want space. A firm with a small team and a flexible plan has more room to negotiate than the migration story suggests.

What to watch

• Whether Henley publishes net migration estimates again.
• Free-zone entity counts for the next full year.
• Take-up of dedicated floors in the financial centre and free-zone towers.
• Share of new family offices that sign an office lease within a year.

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Sources

• Henley & Partners: UAE +9,800 net millionaires, largest inflow
• Henley & Partners
• Henley & Partners