Peter Thiel not the only billionaire: Buenos Aires to Auckland, ultra-rich are buying their way out of America

From Buenos Aires to Auckland, the world’s ultra-rich are quietly building second-home networks, foreign passports and offshore emergency plans, as tax pressures and existential angst reshape where the ultra-rich choose to live.

From the prosperous neighborhoods of Buenos Aires to the volcanic coastline of New Zealand, the world’s ultra-rich are building a new kind of personal geography; it is built not on a single home address but on a network of deliberately brought together jurisdictions; Each chosen for what they offer in situations where the other might fail.

According to private wealth research firm Henley & Partners, 142,000 high-net-worth individuals, defined as those with more than a million dollars in liquid assets, moved to new countries last year. This figure is expected to exceed 165,000 this year. The movement is not accidental. For those advising the very wealthy, this is structured, deliberate and entirely predictable.

Where and Why the Ultra-Rich Are Settled Beyond US Borders

Many destinations have positioned themselves at the center of this change. New Zealand has seen a significant increase in applications from US citizens after relaxing investment thresholds for its golden visa program. Costa Rica and Thailand recorded measurable increases in the number of high-income arrivals. Long considered an unlikely choice for the billionaire class, Buenos Aires is attracting serious attention at a level that seemed unlikely a decade ago.

The motivations driving this movement are layered. Taxation at the most immediate level is a powerful accelerator. In California, where a significant number of the nation’s wealthiest individuals have started and scaled their own companies, lawmakers are considering a ballot proposal that would impose a one-time five percent tax on the net worth of billionaires residing in the state. New York City, under Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has already enacted a tax targeting high-value secondary properties.

For individuals with wealth running into the billions, it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify the financial justification for maintaining a single tax residence in the United States. Foreign jurisdictions with more favorable financial regulations provide both a practical incentive and a structural argument for dispersing one’s personal circumstances across multiple geographies.

Existential Anxieties Are Quietly Leading Billionaires South

Beyond taxation, a separate and less quantifiable set of concerns has entered the private conversations of the ultra-rich. Concerns about political realignment, the long-term trajectory of artificial intelligence and the possibility of nuclear escalation are now a recurring feature of frank, off-the-record discussions taking place at meetings of the very wealthy, according to wealth advisors.

“It sounds melodramatic until you watch their off-the-record dinner conversation,” said Charlie Garcia, founder of the centimillionaire membership club R360. “For this crowd, the Southern Cone seems like a safe distance, literally and figuratively.”

These concerns, once limited to wealthy social circles, are moving to the center of how the billionaire class thinks about long-term emergency planning, Garcia said.

Why Argentina Is an Unlikely But Increasingly Important Destination

Argentina’s emergence as a destination for the ultra-rich stands in deliberate tension with its economic history. The country has experienced repeated currency crises, prolonged periods of inflation, sudden capital controls and sudden changes in the regulatory environment. These are, by traditional measures, exactly the conditions that wealthy families seek to avoid.

But this history may reframe Argentina’s objection rather than invalidating it. For individuals creating a network of options across multiple jurisdictions, the country need not offer stability in the traditional sense. It needs to offer access, geographic distance from the perceived pressure points of the Northern Hemisphere, a concentration of international schools, and a relatively low cost of living for foreign exchange traders. In these conditions, Buenos Aires has a different meaning.

Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal and Palantir and one of the most prominent libertarian voices in US tech, is spending increasingly more time here. As reported by New York TimesThiel bought a house in one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods and enrolled his children in local schools. His presence brought a degree of visibility to a city that was already quietly garnering the attention of those in its social and financial orbit.

Garcia acknowledged that Argentina remains an irrational hedge. For a group of individuals whose risk calculations have become much more complex, counterintuitiveness in itself is not a reason to look elsewhere.

Why Are Billionaires Now Treating Their Personal Lives Like an Investment Portfolio?

Underlying individual choices, from Thiel in Buenos Aires to the surge in golden visa applications in Auckland, is a consistent strategic logic that wealth advisors say is firmly entrenched among the centionaires and billionaire classes.

“There is a clear trend towards sovereignty diversity,” including “multiple passports, multiple tax regimes, and at least one ‘Plan B’ jurisdiction in the Southern Hemisphere,” Garcia said.

The framing is intentional. The ultra-rich approach their personal circumstances as if they were financial: While maintaining primary exposure to the United States, they are building meaningful hedges against a variety of political, financial, and existential scenarios that they conclude are no longer so distant as to be ignored. Particularly for the wealthiest families, relocation is not the goal. Voluntary: The capacity to move, adapt, and hold multiple doors open at once.

This shift from roots to options may be one of the most significant changes in the way the world’s wealthiest individuals choose to live.

Key Figures: The Scale of Ultra-Wealthy Migration

• A record 142,000 high-net-worth individuals relocated internationally last year, according to Henley & Partners.
• This figure is expected to exceed 165,000 this year.
• An increase in the number of wealthy people coming from the USA was recorded in New Zealand, Costa Rica and Thailand.
• California is considering a one-time 5 percent net worth tax on billionaire residents.
• New York City has implemented a tax on high-value secondary properties.