New global estimates of offshore financial wealth by Faye et al. (2025) show that offshore financial wealth has remained remarkably stable at around 7% of global household net financial wealth between 2001 and 2023, despite advances in international tax transparency. While high-income countries still hold the bulk of these assets, the share owned by upper-middle-income countries has grown. At the same time, the geography of offshore intermediation is shifting away from Switzerland toward Asian financial centers, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
These shifts matter as progress towards financial transparency has been uneven across jurisdictions. High- and upper-middle-income countries benefit from relatively strong CRS coverage of offshore accounts. In contrast, many lower-middle- and low-income countries—particularly in Africa and the Middle East—do not participate in the CRS, often due to administrative and institutional constraints. Moreover, regions tend to favor different financial centers, creating varying exposure to financial secrecy. As a result, offshore tax evasion risks remain disproportionately high for many developing countries.
This research note builds on the updated offshore wealth series from the Atlas of the Offshore World to examine these regional asymmetries and their implications for domestic revenue mobilization.