Family Offices in Miami
Contents
Trevor L Taylor is a private investor based in Miami and the founder of Fortius Capital, a private investment vehicle. The city he works from has become one of the places in the United States where wealthy families choose to base the private firms that manage their money. Bloomberg reported in 2026 that Howard Schultz, the former head of Starbucks, had moved to Miami after more than four decades in Seattle and brought the family office along1, while the Schultz foundation stayed behind. Moves like that one have turned the city into a test case for how family offices pick a home.
Why families look at Miami
The reasons families give tend to repeat. Weather and lifestyle come first in many accounts, followed by taxes, time zones that suit both New York and Latin America, and an airport with direct links across the hemisphere. Florida’s approach to personal income tax, covered in the entry on Florida and the state income tax, is part of that calculation for families who move their legal residence along with their office.
A family office also follows its principal. Unlike a bank or an asset manager, it has no clients to keep happy in another city, so when the family relocates, the office can relocate too. That portability is why a handful of high profile moves can reshape a local market quickly.
Arrivals that drew attention
Finance firms led the way before many family offices arrived. Fortune reported that research firm Capital Economics singled out Miami as a clear winner in a weak national office market2, noting that JPMorgan Chase planned to expand its Miami offices to 160,000 square feet, that Goldman Sachs had doubled its downtown footprint and that Citadel had chosen the city for its global headquarters.
Family offices followed the same path. Bloomberg reported that Peter Thiel’s family office leased space in the new 830 Brickell tower, joining a group of finance and tech heavyweights3 in the financial district at a rent the outlet described as a record for the city.
Brickell as the address
Most of this activity concentrates in Brickell, the dense financial district south of the Miami River. Miami Today quoted a leasing executive who called 830 Brickell the city’s Wall Street of Latin America4 as it prepared to welcome tenants such as Microsoft and Citadel. Household name firms, he said, wanted to be in Brickell and in the newest building there, close enough to colleagues at other firms to meet them at lunch.
For a family office, the neighborhood offers practical advantages. Private banks, trust companies, accountants and estate planners are within walking distance, which shortens the chain of advisers a small office depends on. Industry events add to the pull. CNBC reported on a long running global family office investment summit held in the Miami area5 as part of a broader wave of conferences aimed at the roughly 8,000 family offices worldwide.
Multi family offices follow their clients
Shared offices, described in the entry on single and multi family offices, have moved as well. Private Banker International reported that the multi family office founded by grandsons of the Adidas founder relocated its base from Nassau, in the Bahamas, to Miami6 and opened a second office in Tampa.
International firms have opened local outposts. Family Wealth Report covered the London based Stonehage Fleming opening a representative office in the Brickell Avenue financial district7, with a local relationship manager, to serve families across the southeastern United States. Each new provider makes it easier for the next family to set up nearby, since staff, vendors and peers are already in place.
The Latin American thread
Miami’s role as a meeting point for the Americas shapes its wealth business in particular ways. Many Latin American families keep accounts, homes and relatives in South Florida, and offices that serve them often prefer to be in the same city. The entry on Miami as a gateway to Latin America covers the trade and banking ties behind that pattern.
The cross border mix also complicates the work. A family office serving relatives in several countries must coordinate different tax systems, currencies and inheritance customs, which raises demand for the kind of multilingual, multi jurisdiction advisers that cluster in Brickell.
What the jobs data show
The boom has not been a straight line. Miami Today reported that Bureau of Labor Statistics data put financial activities employment in the Miami area at 97,300 jobs in July 2026, down 4 percent from a year earlier8, even as pay continued to climb. The same report noted that the county had added more than 4,600 financial activities jobs during 2025, a gain of about 5.5 percent and the largest source of private job growth over that period.
Those numbers describe the wider financial sector, of which family offices are a small, quiet part. They suggest a market moving from rapid expansion to slower, steadier growth. Pay tells a different story from headcount. Miami Today noted that a separate university report found wages in the county’s finance and insurance sector rising faster than employment, which fits a market that is adding senior, well paid roles even as overall hiring cools. Family offices, with their small teams of experienced investors, tax specialists and lawyers, sit squarely in that higher paid segment.
What comes next
The open question is whether the arrivals of recent years become a permanent cluster or thin out as conditions change elsewhere. Rising office rents, insurance and housing costs, and competition from Palm Beach and other Florida cities all weigh on the decision. So does the simple fact that many family offices are tiny, and can move again as easily as they came.
For now, the evidence points in one direction. New towers are leasing to finance firms, international multi family offices keep opening local desks, and well known families continue to bring their offices with them. The cooling jobs figures are a useful reminder that a city’s financial weight is measured over decades, while headline arrivals can be counted in months.
