tHanks Guying in the Cotswolds is not a minor event. Every November, Americans gather in the British market town of Stow on the Walled to gather traditional sweet potato dishes covered in glass turkey breasts, green bean casserole and marshmallows.
It’s Jesse Dunbrosi’s own entrance, “Strange.” The chef, who owns D’Ambrosi Fine Foods, is one of many Americans who have made the Cotswolds home in recent years. Here, her Thanksgiving and July 4th Food Hampers are highly coveted.
Once Donald Trump settles into his second administration, he will be able to seduce the gentle hills of Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds’ neighbourhood belt He grew stronger for many of her fellow people.
“I’ve seen a lot of Americans scoping and checking out the area,” she said. “It’s obviously political. Why don’t you want to leave the place that guy is in action? It’s a very scary time, especially for women.”
It’s an increasingly popular view as Trump’s authoritarian clampdown and attacks on academia, civil society and political opponents send shockwaves through the US, with some Americans reaching for their passports.
US applications for UK citizenship hit a record high of over 6,100 last year, up 26% from 2023. Around the time of Trump’s reelection, the last three months of the year saw a 40% increase from the previous year.
In major markets in the London real estate market, targeting regions such as Knightsbridge and Mayfair, the number of American buyers surpassed Chinese buyers for the first time last year, real estate agent Knight Frank discovered.
However, the outlook for idyllic life in the UK’s countryside is also increasingly popular. Harry Gladwin, from the Cotswolds’ Purchase Solutions Estate Agency, says a significant percentage of his clients are currently Americans hoping to plan routes abroad.
“Since Trump’s reelection, there has been a huge rise in Americans who see the UK as a place to lock themselves in,” he said.
“There are multiple draws, it’s a safe place to hold property, and young families often want to have a holiday home to spend more time here in the long run.
“Many of them are young people who make money from technology and want to have some fortune elsewhere. Not only are the people in the film media, but also the East Coast financers.”
Defined by the 800 square miles (2,070 square km) landscape, which has been officially protected as an area of outstanding natural beauty since 1966, two-thirds of the Cotswolds are located within Gloucestershire, while the designated area employs parts of several other counties from Warwickshire to the north to Wiltshire to the south. Beyond this, many towns and villages, built from its mellow limestone, perched on its gateway, are generally thought to fit within the Cotswolds area.
Here, Hollywood’s charm lacks, with chocolate box villages and honey-colored cottages offering an idyllic environment. A few scenes from the holiday, a 2000s rom-com starring Cameron Diaz and Jude Law, was filmed near Chipping Norton. The town of Bumpton in Oxfordshire was the location of the village scene in the hit era drama Downton Abbey. Last year, former chat show star Ellen DeGeneres and her wife Portia de Rossi moved to the Cotswolds as Trump returned to the White House.
Luxury brands and lifestyle businesses are chasing money. The gallery at Einho Park, the former post base of luxury American furniture brand RH, has reopened a landmark registered as a Grade I as a luxury showroom two years ago. Private members’ clubs Soho Farmhouse and Daylesford Organic have expanded from farm and furniture stores to a 5-star campus-style experience at pools, spas and padel courts to accommodate influx. Estelle Manor, a country club located in the hall registered with Grade II of Eynsham, charges a participation fee of £1,000 in addition to a standard membership of £3,600 per year.
Dunbrosi, who lived in France and Amsterdam before settling in the UK, opened a luxury food store in Stow on the Wold months before the 2020 pandemic hit.
“We have a huge number of American clients based between the Cotswolds and London,” she said. “We’re in the Hamptons, England. There are gastropubs in every corner, high-end shopping, and accessibility factors that allow you to go to London within an hour and 120 minutes.”
Daniel Holder of R Scott & Co, a menswear shop at Cirencester, wanted to stay in the UK as long as possible, unless most Americans researching the area wanted to return to the US.
“They spend a lot of money,” he said. “Mainly tweed sports jackets, flat caps and knitwear. They look at the peaky blindfold and want the cap.”
Nathan Hanafin-Smith of Cirencester Antiques Center says American shoppers often arrive with a special interest in the Roman coins in the area. “These coins are sometimes over two thousand years old,” he said. “A lot of our coins are older than where they come from, so that shocks them. It puts things in perspective for them.”
Wealth managers report more questions from Americans who are aiming to move their assets away from the country. Sean Cockburn, a group of tax experts at Forvis Mazars, said interest in moving to the UK has increased significantly over the past three years.
“Some people are concerned about potential tax revelations resulting from the abolition of non-Dom regimes, but others welcome the new exemptions introduced to live in the UK for a shorter period,” he said.
After the newsletter promotion
“In particular, the ability to exempt foreign income and profits from UK taxation for the first four years of UK housing would make the UK very attractive to short-term visitors,” he said. However, in most cases, Americans are still expected to pay US taxes.
“The IRS will continue to apply federal income tax to global income, even if they no longer reside in the US,” Cockburn said. “So, Americans may be the first to raise their expectations of avoiding UK taxation on foreign income and profits, but with a larger US tax liability, profits can be eroded significantly.”
But political fear is strong enough to alienate wealthy Democrats, says Armand Arton of Arton Capital, an international citizenship expert who advises high net worth individuals.
Many American families are now thinking about Plan B, he says. “Democrats are running away. The higher their profile, the higher the anti-Trump rhetoric they have expressed, the more serious it becomes about taking those steps.”
Trump’s attacks on academia also seem to encourage escape. Clicks on the UK job list rose 2.4 points a year to 8.5%. This is the most rapidly increasing from any country, according to job search sites. That rise was driven primarily by Americans looking for a role in scientific research and development.
Trump has specifically targeted Harvard University to block funding for medical research at universities, hospitals and other scientific institutions. In February, the National Institutes of Health said it would cut the amount of “indirect” medical research funding by $4 billion a year. Universities across the country have reduced intakes for doctoral students, medical students and other graduate students, introduced employment freezes and in some cases cancel offers to enter.
According to Sir John Bell, a well-known immunologist and president of Ellison Institute of Technology in Oxford, this created a “great opportunity” for the UK to actively recruit American scientists.
Speaking to the House of Representatives’ Science and Technology Committee last month, he said that leaders in the field of biomedical research in the United States were already asking when they could move.
“Do a thought experiment. You’re a standout scientist, you’re sitting in an American institution, and things don’t look good,” he said. “You know for sure they’re bad for four years. They’ll probably be bad for eight years.
“If you’re a great scientist in your late 40s or early 50s, there’s no way you can sit it down.”
About 6,680 American students applied for UK courses at the end of January this year for a traditional deadline, according to UCAS, the National Universities Admissions Service. This is a 12% increase compared to last year, marking the highest number since the record began in 2006.
But Americans who make the leap may need to accept low wages, especially in the UK, in terms of technology. The average salary advertised to US software engineers is actually $123,530 (£93,030) compared to £48,796 in the UK.
American businesses are awakened to the threat posed by Trump’s second term. Doug Winter, CEO of AI Seismic, a high-tech company based in San Diego, California, is actively preparing to convince his workers not to leave the United States in the UK.
“The UK and other international markets are hanging carrots that can be tempted by high-tech workers in the US to chew,” he said. “This relies heavily on ongoing uncertainty across the US and wider economic instability.
“Historically, the US technology ecosystem is resilient, and many US workers trusted employers to see them through uncertain times, but that confidence has been tested.”