The statistics are based on Land Register land and property titles in Scotland (1.89 million titles) as at 31 December 2022, where the registered legal owner has provided an address at the time of the registration that is able to be classified to a geographic location.

With respect to the 26,953 titles in Scotland for which the owner had an address outside of the UK (This category includes both UK overseas territories and Crown Dependencies):

• 84.4 per cent were individuals, 11.1 per cent were companies, 3.0 per cent were trustees or limited partnerships and 1.5 per cent had a combination of owner types.
• Owners had addresses from 165 countries and overseas territories around the world, excluding the UK. More companies purchasing or leasing in Scotland were based in Jersey than anywhere else, while USA was the most common country for individuals.
• More than half (61 per cent) of all titles owned or leased by companies from outwith the UK were accounted for by four Crown dependencies and overseas territories: Jersey, Isle of Man, British Virgin Islands and Guernsey.
• Ownership was the predominant interest for titles with an outwith UK owner address, accounting for 90.3 per cent of titles (24,341 titles). The remaining 9.6 per cent (2,594 titles), related to tenancy under long-term commercial leases.
• City of Edinburgh and Glasgow City were the most popular areas of Scotland for titles with an outwith UK owner address, with 18.2 per cent and 13.2 per cent outwith UK titles respectively.
• Renfrewshire was the third most popular area, with around 10.7 per cent of outwith UK titles. A contributory factor to this is the number of titles of parking spaces and storage facilities near to Glasgow Airport. This is an unusual occurrence that doesn’t appear to be repeated in any other local authority.
• The majority (80 per cent) of titles in Scotland with an owner address outwith the UK were classed as being in urban areas of Scotland.
  Outwith UK titles represented 3.3 per cent of Scotland’s land area.

The full land and property titles by location of owner at time of purchase as at 31 December 2022 statistical report can be accessed here.