British citizens who move abroad aren’t cutting their ties with the UK, with our analysis of Companies House data showing that many are keeping a firm foothold in the rental market. British nationals make up almost a third (29%) of UK buy-to-let limited companies owned by overseas investors.
By combing through data on the nationality and country of residence of buy-to-let limited companies set up from 2016 onwards, which is when Companies House started recording this information, we looked at the numbers of British citizens who own a buy-to-let limited company in the UK but currently live abroad.
Our findings show that there are 21,405 shareholders who are resident outside the UK but own a share in a UK buy-to-let company. This represents approximately 4.4% of all buy-to-let company shareholders, who collectively own around 5.1% of companies.
Of the shareholders living overseas, 5,700 are British nationals and they own 4,561 of the 15,543 limited companies owned by overseas investors.
Drilling down to an individual country level, over 80% of UK buy-to-let company shareholders who live in Jersey, Guernsey, Gibraltar, the Isle of Man and Bermuda are British nationals so are most likely expats. Similarly, 66% of shareholders living in Portugal are British nationals, accounting for 70% of companies.
Interestingly, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), 58% of landlords who are based there and have invested in UK property are British – reflecting increased immigration trends from the UK over recent years. According to some estimates, 30,000 Britons moved to Dubai in 2021, rising to 35,000 in 2022 and 40,000 in 2023.
Much of the outflow of Britons from the UK has been from the wealthy and has been driven in large part by the government’s tax reforms. This year, 16,500 millionaires are predicted to leave the country, according to the widely-cited Henley Private Wealth Migration Report. The UAE, meanwhile, is attracting more millionaires than anywhere else, with Henley & Partners predicting a net inflow of 9,800 relocating millionaires in 2025.
These expat investor figures come in the wake of our research showing an increased interest from foreign nationals in UK buy-to-lets. Of the 33,600 buy-to-let companies set up in the first half of 2025, 20% were owned partly or fully by foreign citizens. This share, which has risen in nine of the last 10 years, is up from 13% in 2016.
Indian investors made up the largest group of non-UK shareholders setting up buy-to-let limited companies in the first six months of the year, followed by Nigerians, Poles and Irish.
There has also been a continued rise in landlord corporations, with 6,493 buy-to-let companies set up in September and 51,295 since the beginning of the year – marking the busiest first nine months of the year on record. The rise is being driven by existing buy-to-let investors seeking to maximise their profits and shelter them from tax, rather than by new landlord purchases.
Holding properties in a company structure can offer some significant tax advantages, including the ability to deduct 100% of borrowing costs from rental income when working out taxable profit. All landlords used to be able to benefit from this before April 2017, when it started to be phased out for higher rate taxpayers. Holding property in a company also means paying corporation tax of between 19% and 25% on earnings left in the company, rather than income tax, which is levied at 40% and 45% at the higher and additional rates.
