Bezos Sold His $63M Washington Estate Before New Millionaire Tax

Washington state voters face a decision on Nov. 3 that could permanently alter the tax landscape for the ultra-wealthy — a shift that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos preempted by relocating to Florida nearly three years ago.

Initiative 645, appearing on the 2026 ballot, seeks to repeal a 9.9% income tax on household earnings above $1 million and explicitly ban future income taxes in the state. Gov. Bob Ferguson signed the levy into law in March, marking Washington’s first income tax in over 90 years. The measure targets roughly 30,000 taxpayers, with collections scheduled to begin in 2028 and first payments due in April 2029. A parallel constitutional challenge remains pending in the courts, while the state Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 over whether a ballot statement warning of education and health care funding cuts should accompany the initiative. That language will appear before voters.

Bezos, now worth $365 billion and ranked second globally behind Elon Musk on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, exited Washington well before the new tax structure materialized. He moved to Miami in late 2023 with Lauren Sánchez Bezos, citing proximity to his parents and the shifting operational center of his aerospace company, Blue Origin, toward Cape Canaveral.

The financial logic of the relocation extends beyond personal convenience. Florida imposes no state income tax. Washington already levies a capital gains tax of up to 7%, which the state Supreme Court upheld in 2023 after prolonged legal battles over its constitutionality. For individuals holding billions in unrealized stock gains, the compounding effect of a new 9.9% income tax layered atop existing capital gains exposure creates a dramatically different wealth preservation calculus than what existed when Bezos founded Amazon in Seattle in 1994.

His departure from the Pacific Northwest culminated in spring 2025 with the sale of his Hunts Point mansion for $63 million, according to King County property records. Puget Sound Business Journal identified the transaction as the most expensive home sale in Washington history. Bezos purchased the 9,420-square-foot estate in 2019 for $37.5 million — the same year his divorce from MacKenzie Scott was finalized — netting approximately $25.5 million on the sale.

“)” src=”https://nile1.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/bezoshouse3.png”/>

The property sits on 3.27 acres overlooking Lake Washington, stretching more than 300 feet along the waterfront. Located roughly seven miles from Amazon’s downtown Seattle headquarters and regional offices for Microsoft, Apple, and Google, the home features three bedrooms, four bathrooms, an elevator, a secondary kitchen, a rooftop terrace, and a glass walkway connecting the main residence to a two-story guesthouse. Late art collector and Build-A-Bear early investor Barney A. Ebsworth previously owned the estate.

Hunts Point remains one of the most exclusive enclaves in the Seattle metropolitan area, where average home prices exceed $8 million according to Zillow. The broader Seattle housing market has surged since the city’s transformation into a global technology hub, ranking among the most expensive in the country.

Bezos has since concentrated his real estate footprint on Indian Creek, a 300-acre gated island municipality in Miami-Dade County colloquially known as the Billionaire Bunker. The island contains only about 40 residential properties. Bezos has spent $237 million acquiring a three-home compound there, including a $90 million purchase in 2024 for a six-bedroom, 12,000-square-foot mansion. Other residents and former homeowners include Tom Brady, Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner.

Wealth management firms view the migration pattern as structurally predictable. John Pantekidis, managing partner and general counsel at TwinFocus, which oversees more than $7 billion for ultrahigh-net-worth families, described Florida as “nirvana” for billionaires seeking tax efficiency.

Washington’s political environment has grown increasingly hostile to concentrated wealth. The state’s 2021 capital gains tax survived a constitutional challenge largely because lawmakers structured it as an excise tax on the sale of assets rather than a direct tax on property or income, navigating around a 1930s-era state Supreme Court precedent that classified a graduated income tax as unconstitutional. The new 9.9% millionaire tax attempts to push past those historical barriers, triggering the current legal and electoral confrontation.

Seattle had been Bezos’s primary residence for nearly three decades. Upon announcing his move, he stated on Instagram that the city would “always have a piece of my heart.” The Hunts Point sale closed the final chapter of his physical presence in the state where Amazon grew from an online bookstore into a $2 trillion corporation.

King County property records confirm the $63 million transaction stands as the highest residential sale ever documented in Washington.