The 10th anniversary of the June 2016 UK referendum on EU membership produced a wave of retrospectives, though nearly all of them looked in one direction. Economists still debate how much of the UK’s tepid performance since 2016 traces to Brexit; the estimates vary widely and remain contested.
But what the divorce, which was finally signed in January 2020, meant for businesses in the other 27 economies has attracted far less attention.
‘The post-Brexit location question has largely been answered’
On the EU side, the ledger is mixed. The bloc remained the UK’s largest trading partner throughout – taking around 41% of UK exports in 2025, according to House of Commons Library data – so friction at the border cut both ways, felt most sharply in the economies that researchers at UK in a Changing Europe identify as the most exposed: Belgium, Ireland, Germany, Cyprus and the Netherlands. But there were gains, too; cities from Dublin to Frankfurt inherited business that once flowed through London.
‘The post-Brexit location question has largely been answered,’ says Laurent Capolaghi, private equity and managed services leader at EY Luxembourg, one of the clearest winners. For the accounting profession, both sides of that ledger turned into work. Customs declarations, import VAT, rules-of-origin evidence and dual regulatory reporting converted frictionless intra-EU trade into third-country trade; relocations created new audit and reporting mandates inside the single market. A political rupture became, in practice, a decade-long engagement letter.
Friction as a business
The German numbers show the cost side. Trade volume between Germany and the UK has fallen by around a third since the 2016 referendum, from 38 million tonnes to 25 million tonnes in 2024, according to German-British Business Outlook 2025, a survey by KPMG in Germany and the British Chamber of Commerce in Germany (BCCG). The same study shows that, adjusted for gold sales through London, exports have stagnated at around €73bn since 2021.
The burden is most visible in the car industry, whose value chains remain heavily concentrated across the Channel. ‘This additional bureaucracy entails significant costs and time, and continues to place a heavy burden on companies,’ says a spokesperson for VDA, the German automotive association.
‘Brexit should be viewed as a catalyst rather than the root cause’
However, six years on from when the divorce papers were signed, the association notes that companies have adapted and adjusted their processes efficiently. Its focus now is January 2027, when the trade deal’s rules of origin tighten: electric vehicles will need around 55% European content – their batteries even more – to escape a 10% tariff, and the association is urging rules that companies ‘have a realistic chance of meeting’.
Gateway dividend
If trade was the cost, the clearest EU gain came from the UK’s old role as the gateway through which foreign firms entered the single market. After 2016 that role fragmented, and the EU’s financial centres divided the spoils along specialist lines: by New Financial’s count, 135 relocating financial firms chose Dublin, 102 Paris, 93 Luxembourg, 62 Frankfurt and 48 Amsterdam.
Luxembourg shows the mechanics. Losing the passporting rights that had let UK-based managers sell funds across the EU, many established Luxembourg management companies and substance-heavy operations to keep access to European investors.
‘When wealthy families move, they bring an entire infrastructure with them’
Capolaghi is precise about the cause: ‘Brexit should be viewed as a catalyst rather than the root cause. The private markets boom would have happened regardless, but Brexit accelerated the migration of functions, decision-making and governance activities towards Luxembourg.’
The work followed the structures. Each relocated entity needed licences, local balance sheets and assurance – and the vehicles themselves demand more of the profession: ‘Private market funds require significantly more judgment and bespoke analysis than traditional liquid funds,’ Capolaghi says. Luxembourg, he argues, has evolved from a fund domicile into a full-service ecosystem in which governance, administration, audit and advisory capabilities concentrate. The gains should not be oversold – New Financial’s tally puts the financial services jobs that moved from London at around 7,400, far below early forecasts.
Imaginative wealth management
Private wealth tells a subtler story than a simple exodus. The UK had long been a powerful competitor on the edge of Europe, argues Stuart Wakeling, managing partner of Henley & Partners’ London office. Once that position became less certain, European countries gained space, and incentive, to compete creatively. Italy moved early with its 2017 flat tax on foreign income; Portugal built a strong run on residence routes; Greece courted property-led investors.
‘Now, the local qualifications are more useful in Europe’
The prize reaches well beyond property. ‘When wealthy families move, they bring an entire infrastructure with them,’ Wakeling says. ‘Firms like ours can help with the initial residence and tax questions, but clients also need trusted local professionals once they arrive.’
For accountants in Milan, Lisbon or Athens, a relocation is not a transaction but an annuity: tax residence, local reporting, succession planning and coordination across jurisdictions. The lasting winners, Wakeling argues, will be the countries that combine imagination with predictability; families planning across generations hesitate wherever the rules keep changing.
Recognition bottleneck
Capital proved easier to move than people. The Brexit deal contained no automatic mutual recognition of professional qualifications, so recognition is settled sector by sector and country by country – and audit is among the most heavily regulated professions in Europe, meaning UK-qualified auditors must satisfy national requirements before they can sign opinions in an EU member state.
The pull of a British training contract has weakened, too. ‘A Dutch accountant might once have taken the UK qualification because it opened doors around the world,’ says Peter Ferrigno, director of tax services at Henley & Partners. ‘Now, the local qualifications are more useful in Europe, so they stay in Amsterdam rather than going to London.’
Warming channel
Yet the mood among businesses is turning. In the KPMG-BCCG survey, 85% of German companies expected EU-UK relations to improve; 72% anticipated rising turnover in the German-British corridor by 2030; and a majority wanted Berlin to use the 2026 review of the EU-UK trade agreement to secure better conditions. Few in the funds industry expect drama from that review: it should be seen, Capolaghi suggests, ‘less as a dramatic Brexit reset and more as an opportunity for incremental improvements’, with regulatory divergence, the mobility and recognition of professionals and any warming of financial-services dialogue the things to watch.
For accountants in the EU, Brexit has stopped being a shock and become a schedule: a review likely to bring adjustment rather than reinvention, rules of origin demanding new supplier data and cost-tracking from 2027, and a qualification regime that still shapes who can do what, and where. The first decade rewarded the firms that adapted fastest. The next will reward those that treat what is coming not as drama to watch, but as deadlines to prepare for.
