Brexit at 10: how has international advice changed?

Ten years after the referendum, one of Brexit’s least discussed consequences is the damage done to cross-border financial advice. The promise was that regulators would develop workable arrangements to support internationally mobile clients. Instead, advisers and consumers were left navigating a fragmented maze of permissions, restrictions and legal uncertainty. Many firms simply stopped serving clients across borders because the compliance burden outweighed the commercial benefit. The result has been a widening international advice gap, with people moving between the UK and Europe often finding it harder, slower and more expensive to access professional advice. Regulators on both sides should reflect on how consumer access became collateral damage in a political and regulatory divorce.

Brexit has made international advice less seamless and more specialist. Before Brexit, the UK could lean on passporting and London’s natural role as Europe’s financial hub. Now, internationally mobile clients often need more coordination around residency, tax, pensions, investment permissions and which adviser is actually allowed to do what.

Some predictions were overdramatic. London did not disappear. The UK still has deep expertise, strong professional services and global appeal. But the idea that there would be no friction was wrong. Cross-border advice is now more fragmented, and firms need proper partnerships with tax, legal and EU-regulated specialists.

For wealthy families, the UK is still attractive, but less automatically so. Stability, tax treatment and regulatory confidence matter. Brexit did not remove the UK’s advantages, but it did make the UK work harder to justify them. International clients now want planning, not assumptions.