Where Do Brits Want to Move in 2026?

The headline: interest in moving abroad is growing

Here’s the first thing to note:

Almost every country in our data went up year-on-year.

More Brits are actively researching a move than 12 months ago. The drivers are familiar enough by now: remote work has normalised, the UK cost of living crisis won't relent, and tax-motivated migration to places like the UAE keeps making headlines.

One of the fascinating things we’ve observed, just through running this site, is that the general interest in leaving the UK spiked enormously around the time of the Winter Budget in 2025.

You can draw your own conclusions from that.

Our assessment is that many Brits are questioning if they can get a “better deal” with a new life outside the UK.

With the wider UK economy stuttering, it’s hard to see this changing anytime soon.

Europe is having a resurgence

The fastest-growing destinations are overwhelmingly European.

France jumped +11 points. Germany +8. Ireland +7.

Post-Brexit, there was a period where European moves felt harder and less appealing… that mood seems to be reversing. The practical barriers (visas, residency permits, healthcare access) haven't actually gone away. Brits are just looking past them and adjusting to the new normal.

France in particular is interesting.

It's not traditionally considered an "easy" expat destination for Brits. The language barrier is real. The bureaucracy is legendary. The tax system can be eye-watering. But at a demand score of 28, level with Ireland and the UAE, France is now firmly in the top tier of destinations Brits are seriously researching.

(We're going to be writing about France a lot more this year.)

Australasia is still the default dream

With a score of 71, Australia is nearly double second-place Spain (42). It's the most-searched destination by a commanding margin, and it's still growing (+6 YoY).

The combination is irresistible: English language, high salaries, outdoor lifestyle, a 1.1 million-strong British community. For a huge chunk of UK expats, Australia is the default aspiration.

New Zealand deserves a mention too. It climbed from 14 to 18 (+4), quietly landing it in eighth place overall.

That's a meaningful jump for a country with a fraction of Australia's marketing budget. The Anglosphere dream is alive and well, and for a lot of Brits, New Zealand is starting to feel like the easier version of Australia… smaller, calmer, friendlier on the edges.

The irony, of course, is that Australia also has one of the hardest visa systems on the entire list.

Wanting to move there… and being able to… are different conversations altogether.

We have unique access to the current “mood on the ground” through running this site. And judging by our inbox, many Brits would LOVE an easier pathway to a new life Down Under. As things stand, it’s still a tough path to navigate.

Spain is popular but losing momentum

Spain is the second most-searched destination. But it's one of the only countries that actually dropped year-on-year (-2).

That doesn't mean Spain is becoming unpopular.

It means the awareness is already saturated. The Costa del Sol isn't a discovery anymore; it's a known quantity. Most Brits already know someone who's moved to Spain.

The more interesting story is the destinations gaining on it. France, Ireland, and the UAE are all sitting at 28 and climbing. If current trends hold, any of them could overtake Spain within the next couple of years.

That would be a properly big shift in the British expat map.

Poland: a quiet reverse-migration story?

Here's the most interesting number in the whole table, and it's hiding in the middle of the pack.

Poland went from 2 to 8.

That's a 4× increase. The largest proportional jump of any country we tracked, even if the absolute numbers are small. Something is happening here.

Our working theory? This isn't primarily British-born Brits suddenly discovering Kraków. It's much more likely Polish nationals who moved to the UK after 2004 and are now seriously thinking about going home.

Honestly, it’s hard to blame them.

Post-Brexit immigration changes. UK cost-of-living pressure. A Poland that is measurably wealthier than it was 20 years ago. All of that creates the conditions for return migration.

The searches are in English (our data is UK-based), but the intent might be Polish.

We can't prove this from the search data alone, and we're not going to pretend we can. But the scale of the jump is hard to explain any other way.

Poland isn't suddenly a hot British expat destination. What it might be is the start of a story about the UK's long-standing Polish diaspora starting to head home in meaningful numbers.

The UAE's tax pull is real

The UAE rose from 22 to 28, and the driver is almost certainly tax.

Zero income tax. No capital gains tax. An increasingly polished expat infrastructure. Dubai and Abu Dhabi keep attracting higher earners and remote workers who want to keep more of what they make.

The +6 growth isn't explosive. But it's consistent, and it's happening from an already-high base.

It’s also entirely predictable if you follow British expats on YouTube. We track which channels are pulling in big numbers and content showcasing Dubai draws in a massive audience. There is huge (and growing) demand here.

Or maybe it’s just lifestyle porn?!

The big question, at the time of writing, is whether the US/Iran crisis will dent these numbers.

Nothing muddies the waters of an immigration plan like drones crashing into skyscrapers and air defence swatting down missiles from the sky…

We’ll be tracking the fall-out closely through 2026.

The ones to watch

Some of the most interesting movement is at the bottom of the table.

Turkey went from 1 to 5 (+4). South Korea appeared from nowhere (0 to 4). Japan climbed from 9 to 14.

The absolute numbers are still small, measured relatively against the evergreen pull of Australia and Spain. But these are the early signals that often precede a bigger trend.

Turkey's growth probably reflects its extraordinary cost-of-living advantage (our cost index has it at 38 vs the UK's 100… that's a 62% reduction). South Korea and Japan suggest a growing appetite for East Asian destinations beyond the traditional Southeast Asia trail. Possibly driven by younger, more digitally native expats who grew up online with K-pop and anime, and have a different mental map of "abroad" to their parents.

Worth checking back in a few months…

Bookmark this page and we’ll keep you updated!