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“The rich will just leave.”

Norway was supposed to lose its rich, and the numbers show about a hundred people and a tax bill that grew 72%

Norway raised its wealth tax in 2022 and the headlines said the rich were fleeing. The Finance Ministry counted 82 people with more than NOK 100 million who moved in two years. A study of the whole reform puts the total at about 100 and the lost revenue at about 2%. Meanwhile wealth tax receipts grew 72% in three years.

By Egalitaristen · Updated November 9, 2026 · 4 min read

Norway raised its wealth tax in 2022, and the foreign press ran stories about billionaires fleeing to Switzerland. The official numbers tell a different story. The Finance Ministry counted 48 people with more than NOK 100 million who moved abroad in 2022 and 34 in 2023, with about NOK 45 billion of taxable wealth between them.^[3] Norway's total taxable wealth in 2022 was NOK 3,223 billion, so the whole "exodus" held 1.4% of it.^[1] Over the same years the wealth tax went from NOK 18.5 billion in 2021 to NOK 31.8 billion in 2024, a rise of 72%, with only 8% more payers.^[1]

#What the statistics show

An economist who studied the full reform finds at most about 100 people left because of it, nearly all in 2022 and 2023, nearly all in the top 0.1% of wealth. Without any emigration the tax would have brought in 75% more in 2024 than in 2021. With it, 71.5% more.^[5] That is a loss of about 2% of the revenue.

The number of Norwegians paying wealth tax of NOK 1 million or more rose from 2,572 in 2022 to 2,838 in 2024.^[2] Total emigration from Norway shows no break either: 34,297 people in 2021 and 32,919 in 2025.^[1]

#The headlines against the statistics

Every scare story has a number behind it, and the number is smaller than the story. The "exodus" is those 82 people from the ministry.^[3] In May 2026 the broadcaster NRK counted 163 business owners who had moved to Switzerland since 2020. Together they had paid NOK 343 million in wealth tax before leaving. That is 2% of the wealth tax collected in 2019, and 1.1% of what Norway collected in 2024.^[6]^[1] NRK adds that the same people still paid about NOK 310 million a year in other Norwegian taxes, because their companies are Norwegian.^[6] They left, and their companies stayed.

A think tank that campaigns against taxes on ownership counted people with more than NOK 50 million moving abroad: 17 a year under the previous government and 77 a year in 2022 and 2023.^[7] The think tank itself says it hasn't tested whether the tax caused it. So the loudest figure on the other side is a few dozen people a year, in a tax that collects over NOK 30 billion.

A Princeton doctoral study from December 2025 projects a heavier toll. It finds that the share of affected households leaving rose from 0.2% to more than 2% in the reform year, that firms of leaving owners make 12.6% less revenue, and it projects a 1.3% loss of output over the long run.^[12] Read to the end and the paper makes the case for the answer we are arguing. Its remedy is a charge on the value of a company when its owner leaves, which it finds cuts the number leaving and raises output.^[12] The problem it describes is solved by a design choice, and it is no reason to scrap the tax.

#Why a fortune that leaves is no loss

The argument treats a billionaire living in your country as the prize. What a country gets from the very rich is tax, jobs and investment. A rich person who stays and pays no tax contributes none of the first. On the other two, the Norwegian evidence is plain: no sign that firms owned by wealth tax payers paid out more, invested less or went bust more often after the reforms, and no extra emigration of startup founders.^[5] In France, the share of payers leaving was 0.2% before the 2018 repeal and 0.2% after it, and keeping them cost over €4 billion a year.^[9]

Taxes can also follow the person. Norway no longer lets its exit tax lapse after five years, and since March 2024 the bill can be spread over 12 years.^[8] People who left in 2022 had NOK 134 billion of unrealised gains assessed for exit tax.^[4] The ministry expects about NOK 100 million from the exit tax in 2026, rising to about NOK 1.2 billion a year after 12 years.^[8]

#What the research on Sweden and Denmark adds

Studies of Sweden's repeal in 2007 find that it made wealthy people 30% less likely to leave. They also find that a one point higher top rate lowers the number of wealthy taxpayers by about 2% and the economy's output by 0.10%.^[10] Put those next to the revenue. A tax with a threshold at the top moves a few people and raises billions. The design question is how to keep it from moving even those few.

#A tax that keeps people

Four rules do it. Tax residents and run the exit tax for a decade, with a charge on the value of the company when its owner leaves.^[12] Value all assets at market value: Norway discounts shares by 20% and primary homes by 75%, and every discount is a reason to rearrange assets rather than a reason to move.^[11] Set the threshold high, so only the richest households carry the tax. And count departures properly: the ministry's own count is unaudited, which is a data failure any government can fix.

#Who says so

The Norwegian story sets out the tax and who defends it. The French story has the departures data from the French evaluation committee, and the Swedish story has the repeal.

#Where to look next

The next page takes up the claim that wealth cannot be valued. The Norwegian, French and Swedish stories carry the underlying sources.