KEY POINTS
- Corporate filings confirm Joshua has formally changed his residence to the UAE.
- Dubai has no income tax; Joshua faced UK tax on £10.1 million dividends in 2024.
- The Anthony Joshua Dubai move comes despite Iranian drone attacks on the city.
While thousands of British nationals were paying up to £100,000 for private jet evacuations from a Dubai under Iranian drone attack, Anthony Joshua was filing paperwork to move there permanently.
The Anthony Joshua Dubai move became public last week through routine corporate documentation submitted for two of his companies, Sparta Promotions Limited and 258 Investments Limited, both of which now list the UAE as his country of residence. The filings confirm a shift that people in his circle had long expected, given how much time the Watford born boxer of Nigerian heritage had already been spending in the city.
The financial reasoning is straightforward. Dubai levies no personal income tax, and the numbers at stake are significant. Sparta Promotions reported profits of £20.4 million in 2024 and paid £6.65 million in UK corporate tax the same year. Joshua personally received dividend payments of £10.1 million in 2024 and £6.3 million in 2023, both of which carried UK tax obligations under his previous residential status.
A City He Has Long Called Home
The move was not a sudden decision. Joshua has used Dubai’s sporting facilities for training camps for years, and his most famous visit came in 2017 when he sparred on the helipad of the Burj Al Arab hotel, 700 feet above the sea. More recently, he dined with promoter Eddie Hearn there late last year and trained with MMA fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov in the city last month.
He joins a growing list of wealthy Britons who have formally based themselves abroad, including Manchester United owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe and EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou in Monaco, and Pimlico Plumbers founder Charlie Mullins in Marbella.
Personal Losses Shaped the Timing
According to Billionaires Africa, the Anthony Joshua Dubai move also follows one of the most painful stretches of his personal life. Last year, his personal trainer Kevin Ayodele and long-time therapist Sina Ghami were both killed in a road accident in Nigeria. Joshua has spoken publicly about carrying that loss, and recently shared images of physical rehabilitation work on his ribs with a note about resilience.
The 2012 Olympic gold medallist holds both an OBE and MBE and remains one of the most recognised athletes in the world. Whether his next fight camp is in Dubai or elsewhere, his business base is now formally in a city that has clearly mattered to him long before this week’s paperwork made it official.
