Cayman investment in the UK more than doubled to £99.3 billion in 2024, UK figures show.

The stock of foreign direct investment from the Cayman Islands in the UK rose by £58.3 billion from £41.0 billion at the end of 2023, according to the Department for Business and Trade’s Cayman Islands trade and investment factsheet, updated on 24 September 2026 using Office for National Statistics (ONS) data. Cayman Finance, the financial services industry association, issued its analysis of the figures on 5 October 2026.

Cayman’s share of all inward direct investment in the UK rose to 4.7% from 1.9%. The UK’s total inward stock fell by £75.4 billion to £2,127.6 billion over the same year, the ONS said in its annual release on 27 January 2026. Cayman Finance’s statement did not mention a second figure in the same Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) data it relied on: the number of Cayman funds run by UK-based managers fell from 1,380 in 2023 to 1,014 in 2024, even as their net assets rose 5.5% to US$653 billion.

The figures Cayman Finance described as recently released were first published by the ONS on 27 January 2026 and carried in the department’s Cayman factsheet from 23 June 2026.

Where Cayman ranks

The Department for Business and Trade’s trade and investment core statistics book, updated on 18 September 2026, ranks Cayman seventh among sources of inward investment in the UK at the end of 2024. Ahead of it are the U.S. (£640.3 billion), the Netherlands (£199.4 billion), Luxembourg (£134.2 billion), Jersey (£115.7 billion), France (£110.5 billion) and Japan (£102.0 billion). Behind it are Belgium (£90.9 billion), Ireland (£77.4 billion) and Bermuda (£55.6 billion).

Cayman does not appear in the ONS’s main country tables. The department says the Cayman figures come from a separate ONS ad hoc data release, used where a country is missing from the main publication. The ONS’s own tables group Jersey with Guernsey, the other Channel Islands and the Isle of Man under one heading, UK Offshore Islands, with a combined position of £147.9 billion.

Three of the ten economies on the department’s list, Cayman, Jersey and Bermuda, are overseas territories or Crown Dependencies of the UK. Luxembourg and the Netherlands are the two economies the department itself names as examples of financial centres whose figures are overstated by its counting method. Together, those five accounted for £604.2 billion, or 28.4%, of the UK’s inward direct investment stock at the end of 2024, according to the department’s figures.

Cayman’s rise came as other conduit jurisdictions fell back. The ONS’s main tables show the UK Offshore Islands grouping’s position dropped from £237.2 billion at the end of 2023 to £147.9 billion a year later, Luxembourg’s from £186.8 billion to £134.2 billion and Switzerland’s from £58.9 billion to £44.0 billion. The Netherlands rose from £180.8 billion to £199.4 billion. The ONS does not say in its release whether any of those movements are linked, and The Caymanian Journal (TCJ) has not established a connection between them and the Cayman figure.

How the ONS counts

The ONS records direct investment by the country the money arrives from, not by where its ultimate owner sits. Its 27 January release says country figures can be distorted where a parent company invests through one or more countries before the money reaches its final destination. The department’s ranking table carries the same note and says the method often overstates investment from big financial centres or countries offering favourable tax terms.

In a 2023 analysis, the ONS put UK “round-tripping”, meaning UK companies’ foreign affiliates investing back into the UK, at £53.2 billion in 2021, or 2.7% of the inward total. It named the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands and Singapore among the offshore centres involved, alongside the U.S. and Germany.

Asked about this by TCJ, Cayman Finance said in an email on 5 October 2026 that as a major financial centre, Cayman is likely to be the immediate rather than the ultimate source of most of the investment, and that its funds sector specialises in pooling global capital for international investment.

The distinction matters for how the £99.3 billion is read. On the ONS’s method, an investor anywhere in the world that buys into a UK company through a Cayman vehicle is counted as Cayman investment. The ONS says aggregate totals are unaffected by whether statistics are presented on an immediate or an ultimate basis, but the split between countries is.

What the figures measure

The £99.3 billion is a position, the value of the stock of investment held at 31 December 2024, not money that arrived during the year. The ONS says positions move with currency valuations and asset prices as well as with new investment. Direct investment is defined as a holding of at least 10% of the voting shares of a company; smaller holdings are counted as portfolio investment and collected separately.

New money into the UK was smaller than the change in Cayman’s position suggests. The ONS says total inward investment flows into the UK fell by £27.9 billion to £13.4 billion in 2024. Foreign parents took £106.2 billion in dividends out of their UK affiliates during the year, more than the £98.9 billion of profits those affiliates generated. The ONS does not publish an inward flow figure for Cayman in its main tables.

The figures are survey-based. The ONS says 2,330 of the 4,134 companies selected for its 2024 inward survey responded, a rate of 56.4%, and that values for non-respondents are estimated. It also revised the UK’s 2023 net position, from negative £225.5 billion in its June 2025 estimate to negative £364.0 billion in January 2026.

Both the ONS and the department warn against comparing current figures with years before 2020, when the ONS changed how it samples companies for the survey. The department says data from 2020 onwards are more representative of UK investment with overseas partners and are comparable with each other. The ONS bulletin is designated accredited official statistics; the department’s factsheets are official statistics that have not been formally assessed by the Office for Statistics Regulation.

Portfolio holdings triple

CIMA’s 2024 Investments Statistical Digest shows Cayman funds held US$733.4 billion of UK securities at the end of 2024, up from US$217.1 billion a year earlier. UK equities accounted for US$479.2 billion, against US$130.0 billion in 2023, and long-term debt for US$237.8 billion, against US$73.5 billion. These are holdings of shares and bonds below the 10% direct-investment threshold and sit outside the ONS figures above.

The same table records negative values for the UK of US$148.3 billion in 2024 and US$35.6 billion in 2023. CIMA told TCJ these represent short positions in investments domiciled in the UK. Deducting them from the long holdings leaves a net figure of US$585.2 billion in 2024 against US$181.5 billion in 2023, a TCJ calculation; on that basis Cayman funds’ net exposure to UK securities still more than tripled.

The digest is compiled from the annual returns that every CIMA-regulated fund must file. The country breakdown comes from the section of the return in which funds report the jurisdiction of the issuer of each security they hold.

The fund count

The same digest records funds by the location of their investment manager. UK-based managers ran 1,014 Cayman funds at the end of 2024 with net assets of US$653 billion, 7.1% of the net assets of all Cayman funds. A year earlier the figures were 1,380 funds, US$619 billion and 7.4%.

On the fall in the number of UK-managed funds, Cayman Finance told TCJ that the fund numbers on that part of the digest do not appear to align with the total number of funds stated elsewhere in the report, and that it tends to use CIMA’s headline figures when discussing fund numbers. It said that if the number of UK funds had fallen, it may be due to an industry trend towards fewer, larger private market funds, which it said was being offset by growing demand for hedge funds.

CIMA’s 2024 Annual Report gives 30,150 regulated funds at December 2024, up from 29,353 a year earlier, made up of 12,858 mutual funds and 17,292 private funds. The digest’s manager-location table lists far fewer funds than that headline figure. CIMA told TCJ in an email on 6 October 2026 that the UK figures are correct, based on the fund annual returns it received in 2024 and 2023.

The decline was not confined to the UK. Every manager location listed in the digest’s table had fewer funds in 2024 than in 2023. Cayman-based managers ran 1,822 funds, down from 1,962, with net assets of US$506 billion. Hong Kong-based managers ran 1,335, down from 1,700, with net assets of US$271 billion. Singapore-based managers ran 704, down from 830, with net assets of US$210 billion, and Jersey-based managers ran 68, down from 102, with net assets of US$174 billion. In each case except Hong Kong, net assets rose while the number of funds fell, which is consistent with Cayman Finance’s account of fewer, larger funds. U.S.-based managers accounted for 55% of all Cayman fund net assets in 2024, down from 57%.

Asked whether it attributed the fall to consolidation, liquidations, re-domiciling or another cause, CIMA said the number and net asset value of funds managed from each jurisdiction varies each year and that its annual returns do not capture the underlying reasons for the changes.

A two-way relationship

The investment runs in both directions. The department’s factsheet shows UK companies held £44.9 billion of direct investment in the Cayman Islands at the end of 2024, up 24.9% or £9.0 billion on a year earlier, and 2.4% of the UK’s outward stock.

Trade between the two is almost entirely in services sold by the UK. UK exports to the Cayman Islands were £6.1 billion in 2025, up 15.8%, of which £6.0 billion, or 99.2%, were services. That made Cayman the UK’s 27th-largest export market and its 22nd-largest market for services. UK imports from Cayman were £212 million, giving the UK a trade surplus of £5.9 billion. The factsheet does not break down which services were sold.

Seen from Cayman’s side, the UK is one destination among many. The factsheet reproduces United Nations Conference on Trade and Development figures, reported by the Cayman Islands, putting Cayman’s total outward direct investment stock at US$410.1 billion at the end of 2024, up from US$382.9 billion, and its inward stock at US$637.0 billion, up from US$601.1 billion. The department says those figures are for reference only and are not directly comparable with the UK-reported data, which are compiled on a different basis and in a different currency.

What Cayman Finance said

Samantha Widmer, Director and Head of Funds & Capital Markets at Cayman Finance, said in the 5 October statement: “At a time when attracting investment is a priority for the United Kingdom, the latest ONS data highlights Cayman’s positive contribution to its economy. While overall inward investment fell, investment from Cayman more than doubled to £99.3 billion, making Cayman one of the UK’s largest sources of foreign direct investment. That capital is supporting UK businesses, infrastructure and financial markets.”

She said: “UK-based managers also increased the net assets they oversee through Cayman funds by 5.5% last year. These figures show Cayman’s success and the UK’s growth ambitions are increasingly aligned. Cayman provides a trusted, internationally recognised platform for global investment, and the UK continues to benefit from the capital, expertise and opportunities this relationship creates.”

Cayman Finance’s statement set out the industry’s case for why the capital is routed through Cayman. It said Cayman’s tax-neutral status allows funds to pool capital from pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and insurers around the world without the income being taxed in more than one country, and without double taxation treaties having to be applied. Investors in Cayman funds, it said, remain fully liable for tax on investment income and capital gains in their home countries. It said UK-based portfolio managers regularly use Cayman funds for international investment and that managers register funds in Cayman partly because of what it called the ecosystem of qualified, experienced and regulated service providers that has grown up around them.

The statement said holdings in Cayman funds are reported to the tax authorities of more than 120 countries under the OECD Common Reporting Standard, including HM Revenue and Customs in the UK, and that Cayman transmitted data on 1,640,000 accounts, covering balances, investments, shareholdings and taxpayer identities, in 2024. TCJ has not independently verified the account figure, which Cayman Finance did not source in the statement.

The London visit

Widmer and Cayman Finance CEO Steve McIntosh visited the UK in September 2026 as part of a delegation that included Premier and Minister for Financial Services and Commerce André Ebanks MP and CIMA representatives, Cayman Finance said. The statement said the delegation met investment managers, distributors and legal advisers, and described the visit as part of its continuing engagement with UK investment professionals.

The Premier holds the financial services portfolio directly. Cayman Finance is a private industry body representing, by its own account, more than 175 member firms and 16 professional associations; it is not a government agency, and its analysis of the UK figures is its own.

What happens next

The ONS has not announced a date for its figures covering 2025. The Department for Business and Trade’s next Cayman Islands factsheet is scheduled for 30 October 2026 and its next core statistics book for 22 October 2026, though neither will carry new direct investment positions until the ONS publishes them.

CIMA’s 2025 Investments Statistical Digest, which will show whether the fall in UK-managed fund numbers continued, follows the filing of funds’ annual returns and has in past years been published late in the following year.