Europe leads global holiday-home markets for High-Net-Worth Individuals, new Global Citizen Solutions briefing finds.
- Lifestyle, stability, and ownership conditions — not returns alone — define top-performing markets
- Southern Europe combines high appreciation with lifestyle appeal, while alpine markets anchor long-term value preservation
- Japan and New Zealand play targeted roles, from diversification to low-volatility hold.
London – 22 April 2026 – Global Citizen Solutions (“GCS”), a leading residency and citizenship planning advisory firm, has published a new briefing Best Places to Own a Holiday Home as a HNWI: The Lifestyle Lens ranking 20 global markets across three weighted pillars – Prime Property, Lifestyle & Desirability, and Accessibility – and finding that seven of the top ten holiday home destinations for high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) are European.
The briefing’s assessment of 20 established global markets, each represented by flagship luxury holiday home destinations, uses comparable indicators to show that the strongest-performing locations in the sample are those where lived experience, ownership conditions, and investment fundamentals align across the three pillars.
The concentration of top-ranked markets in Europe reflects a combination of climate, luxury infrastructure, institutional stability, and ownership conditions that are not easily replicated elsewhere. As Global Citizen Solutions’ CEO, Patricia Casaburi, notes: “Europe’s dominance here is structural rather than incidental. The leading markets share a rare alignment of climate, luxury infrastructure, safety, and ownership conditions that continue to make the continent appealing to lifestyle-driven buyers.”
Spain is the only market in the ranking where top-tier capital appreciation (12.5% annually) and the highest quality-of-life score in the entire dataset (84.8) are achieved simultaneously. Portugal’s southern coast, the Algarve, records the highest annual appreciation of any market in the ranking at 17.7%, alongside sustained top-quartile safety performance and institutional quality. Both markets illustrate the briefing’s central finding: top destinations are defined not by leading in one measure alone, but by strong performance across all three pillars.
France achieves the maximum luxury infrastructure score in the dataset, suggesting that cultural cachet can sustain demand even where appreciation is modest. Italy, meanwhile, is priced at less than a third of Monaco’s entry point and under half of France’s, offering access to a comparable prestige tier at a lower cost — a proposition grounded in heritage and long-term holding rather than short-term returns. Both markets confirm that for a significant portion of HNWI buyers, irreplaceable cultural property constitutes a distinct and durable form of value.
The briefing also identifies a divide within the top ten. Southern European markets — including Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy — are geared towards experience, with higher market appreciation, greater solar exposure, and intensive seasonal use. Alpine markets, by contrast, lean towards permanence: multi-generational holding, tightly controlled supply, and long-term value preservation. Austria and Switzerland share the joint-highest safety score in the dataset, though Austria carries materially lighter foreign ownership restrictions, making it the more accessible alpine option for international buyers.
The United States leads in air connectivity by a considerable margin, and on the highest entry price in the top ten, underscoring its position as a global hub status for access and liquidity. The remaining two non-European entries in the top ten serve distinct purposes. Niseko, Japan — the sole Asia-Pacific market in the ranking — functions as a high-quality alpine destination and portfolio diversification option, its recent boom driven by significant foreign direct investment. New Zealand’s Queenstown represents the stability play: the only destination combining a high safety score in the dataset (comparable to Portugal and alpine options) with sub-1% annual appreciation, suited to buyers whose primary rationale is security over rapid returns.
GCS’ Global Intelligence Unit Researcher, Liana Simonyan adds: “Using a three-pillar framework, this index ranks twenty prime markets, deliberately weighting lifestyle and desirability above property fundamentals — a methodological choice grounded in how high-net-worth individuals actually experience their second homes.”
To read the full briefing, visit: https://www.globalcitizensolutions.com/briefing/best-places-to-own-a-holiday-home-as-a-hnwi/
About the Briefing
The briefing is structured around three pillars: Prime Property (40%), Lifestyle & Desirability (45%), and Accessibility (15%). The higher weighting of the lifestyle pillar reflects the research’s central premise: for HNWIs, lived experience can be as important as financial considerations. All indicators are normalised for comparability, and a geopolitical risk adjustment is applied as a final overlay. The briefing also introduces four buyer typologies — the Conspicuous Investor, Patrimonial Buyer, Portfolio Allocator, and Amenity Migrant — providing a behavioural lens for interpreting the results. As of 2026, second-home ownership represents 28% of global luxury property transactions (Sotheby’s International Realty, 2026).
About Global Citizen Solutions
Global Citizen Solutions is a leading residency and citizenship planning advisory firm, helping high-net-worth clients and their families secure greater control over where they can live, travel, do business, and operate across jurisdictions.