Dubai-based family offices overseeing more than $ 1.2 trillion are now facing a real-world stress test.
According to The Business Times, some Asian family offices are already looking at partial exits from the Gulf as US-Israeli strikes on Iran move into a third week.
This is not a market event in the usual sense. It is a reassessment of jurisdictional risk.
Law firms are seeing it first. Bayfront Law’s Ryan Lin notes that inquiries have jumped from about five a week across all of 2025 to roughly 20 a week since the escalation began. Families are asking about second offices, restructuring holding vehicles, and shifting custody toward Singapore or Hong Kong.
None of that happens quickly.
Assets tied up in trusts, custody arrangements, and financing structures cannot be moved with a simple transfer. Changing course means legal work, time, and coordination across jurisdictions.
Advisers are describing it in measured terms. Julius Baer’s Tay Xinyee speaks about "rebalancing and structure review." Raffles Family Office’s William Chow calls it a change in mindset. PwC’s Anuj Kagalwala points to a clear increase in families exploring second-office setups outside Dubai.
Capital is adjusting alongside structure. There is more interest in short-duration bonds, money market instruments, and safe-haven currencies. Investment-grade private credit in Australia is also coming up more often as an alternative to US exposure.
None of this cancels out what drew families to the UAE in the first place. The regulatory environment, tax framework, and connectivity still hold.
But multi-family offices are feeling the strain. Different families bring different risk tolerances, and a single geographic base no longer fits all of them equally well.
Even if tensions settle, the underlying shift is unlikely to reverse. Geopolitical neutrality is now part of how wealth gets structured, not an afterthought.
Which leaves a harder question on the table. Not where to move. But whether concentrating wealth in a single jurisdiction ever made sense in the first place.
According to The Business Times, some Asian family offices are already looking at partial exits from the Gulf as US-Israeli strikes on Iran move into a third week.
This is not a market event in the usual sense. It is a reassessment of jurisdictional risk.
Law firms are seeing it first. Bayfront Law’s Ryan Lin notes that inquiries have jumped from about five a week across all of 2025 to roughly 20 a week since the escalation began. Families are asking about second offices, restructuring holding vehicles, and shifting custody toward Singapore or Hong Kong.
None of that happens quickly.
Assets tied up in trusts, custody arrangements, and financing structures cannot be moved with a simple transfer. Changing course means legal work, time, and coordination across jurisdictions.
Advisers are describing it in measured terms. Julius Baer’s Tay Xinyee speaks about "rebalancing and structure review." Raffles Family Office’s William Chow calls it a change in mindset. PwC’s Anuj Kagalwala points to a clear increase in families exploring second-office setups outside Dubai.
Capital is adjusting alongside structure. There is more interest in short-duration bonds, money market instruments, and safe-haven currencies. Investment-grade private credit in Australia is also coming up more often as an alternative to US exposure.
None of this cancels out what drew families to the UAE in the first place. The regulatory environment, tax framework, and connectivity still hold.
But multi-family offices are feeling the strain. Different families bring different risk tolerances, and a single geographic base no longer fits all of them equally well.
Even if tensions settle, the underlying shift is unlikely to reverse. Geopolitical neutrality is now part of how wealth gets structured, not an afterthought.
Which leaves a harder question on the table. Not where to move. But whether concentrating wealth in a single jurisdiction ever made sense in the first place.