NEARLY ONE IN 40 Dubliners are millionaires, making our capital 13th in the list of the top 20 millionaire-rich cities.
The study by Spear’s magazine found that 2.4% of Dublin residents are classified as dollar millionaires, a higher percentage than places like Toronto, Brussels or San Francisco.
Going by the estimate of Dublin’s 2011 census population of 1.2 million people, it means that there are around 27,000-30,000 millionaires in the capital, pretty much the exact capacity of the Cusack Stand in Croke Park.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, everyone’s favourite Côte d’Azur tax-haven Monaco topped the list of millionaire cities, with 29.2% of its residents being classified as such.
Zurich and Geneva are the others in the top three and there’s then a big dip to New York in fourth. Frankfurt is the top EU city in fifth folowd by London in sixth.
The magazine study was carried out by the Spear’s along with consultancy company WealthInsight. They defined a millionaire as someone who had net assets of $1 million or more, excluding their primary home.
It means that not all of the Dublin ‘millionaires’ are millionaires in euro terms with $1 million equal to about €740,000.
“Favourable tax and outstanding location are important criteria for attracting clusters of millionaires,” explains WealthInsight’s Oliver Williams.
“So too is ready access to wealth managers and private banks. Switzerland’s two financial hubs of Zurich and Geneva are traditional havens of private banking, but so too is London.”
Despite this, editor of Spear’s Josh Spero warns that London’s position as a millionaire hub is under threat:
London’s continued success is not guaranteed, and big issues like membership of the EU and how we tax our citizens and businesses will determine whether we have more millionaires or fewer in the future. We also always need to bear in mind that having millionaires isn’t itself a good thing if it means inequality – which is damaging to everyone – goes up too.
1. Monaco (29.21%)
2. Zurich (27.34%)
3. Geneva (17.92%)
4. New York (4.63%)
5. Frankfurt (3.88%)
6. London (3.39%)
7. Oslo (2.90%)
8. Singapore (2.80%)
9. Amsterdam (2.63%)
10. Florence (2.59%)
11. Hong Kong (2.58%)
12. Rome (2.54%)
13. Dublin (2.40%)
14. Doha (2.31%)
15. Toronto (2.29%)
16. Venice (2.25%)
17. Brussels (2.11%)
18. Houston (2.09%)
19. San Francisco (2.07%)
20. Paris (2.04%)
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say