Wall Street South 2026: Every Major Firm That Moved to Florida

Over 200 investment firms have relocated to South Florida since 2020, and the migration is accelerating — roughly 10 companies moved their headquarters to Palm Beach County in just the first two months of 2026. This isn't a trend anymore. It's a structural relocation of the American financial services industry from Manhattan to a 100-mile stretch between Miami and Palm Beach.

The math that started it: Florida has no state income tax. A fund manager earning $100 million a year saves over $10 million annually by leaving New York's 10.9% top state rate. But what's keeping it going is something different — a self-reinforcing ecosystem where talent, deal flow, service providers, and commercial infrastructure have all reached the density needed to operate at institutional scale without a Manhattan address. This is the complete tracker.

The complete relocation timeline

Every major firm relocation to South Florida, ordered chronologically. This list covers the headline moves — hundreds of smaller firms have followed but are harder to track publicly.

Sources: Commercial Observer, WSJ, Bloomberg, BusinessWire, Palm Beach County BDB, and direct reporting. This table covers headline moves; hundreds of smaller firms have relocated but are less publicly documented.

The tax math

The headline driver is simple: Florida has zero state income tax. New York's top rate is 10.9%, plus New York City's 3.876% for Manhattan-based workers. For a hedge fund manager earning $100 million a year, the move from Manhattan to Palm Beach saves over $14.7 million in combined state and city taxes annually. That's before accounting for Florida's lower property taxes, no estate tax, and no tax on capital gains distributions.

But the tax savings narrative understates what's actually happening. The move has become self-reinforcing: Point72 is poaching talent from Citadel and Goldman for its West Palm Beach office. Service providers (Gunster, Pillsbury, Bessemer Trust, Wilmington Trust) are expanding locally to serve relocated clients. Commercial real estate developers are building specifically for financial tenants. The ecosystem now generates its own gravity.

The two physical symbols of Wall Street South

One Flagler, West Palm Beach: Stephen Ross's Related Companies development at 154 Lakeview Avenue. Wells Fargo's Wealth & Investment Management headquarters occupies 50,000 square feet. One Flagler is where the institutional, publicly-traded financial firms anchor — the West Palm Beach equivalent of 383 Madison Avenue.

701 Brickell, Miami: Elliott Management's $450 million purchase from Nuveen Real Estate in 2024. Point72 also leases space in the building. 701 Brickell is where the hedge fund and alternative investment concentration sits — the Miami equivalent of Greenwich, Connecticut. The two buildings together represent the geographic poles of Wall Street South: West Palm Beach for wealth management and institutional finance, Miami for hedge funds and alternatives.

Tech following finance

The most interesting development in 2025-2026 is tech companies following the financial firms south. ServiceNow (200,000 SF lease at 10 CityPlace, WPB), Amazon (50,000 SF in Wynwood), Palantir (Thiel moving HQ functions to Wynwood), and D-Wave Quantum (HQ to Boca Raton) are the headline moves. Broward County alone hosts 3,742 technology companies employing 44,431 people.

The tech moves follow a clear causal chain: executives relocated for lifestyle and tax reasons during COVID, companies followed executives, and now the combined finance + tech talent pool is large enough to support local hiring at scale. For the broader picture of tech and VC in the region, see our South Florida Money Map and South Florida family offices guide.