The greatest art gallery

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The greatest art gallery

There's a collection of art in Geneva valued at more than $10B. It's thought there are over a million paintings, and the facility is the size of 30 football fields.

There are similar sites in Luxembourg, Monaco, Singapore, Zurich, Beijing, and ... Delaware.

The home of billions worth of priceless art.

These sites are called free ports, and they're a remarkable economic invention.

A free port facilitates “the temporary exemption of taxes for an unlimited quantity of time.” Put another way, it's a giant warehouse used to stash art, antiquities, wine, gold, jewels, and other priceless artifacts and never pay tax on them.

They exist outside the formal jurisdiction of any country; the clients remain anonymous and the assets are kept a secret.

And though you may have never heard of free ports, they're a big deal in the art world:

  • 28% of artists and collectors have used a free port;
  • 42% of dealers and brokers say their clients use them.

Why use a free port?

If you buy a $10m painting from a dealer in France and want to bring it to the US (or anywhere else, really), you'll have to pay import duties as high as $2m - $3m. Storing it in a free port gets around this. For around $1,000 per month, you'll never pay those import taxes on your van Gogh.

Moreover, when it comes time to sell your piece, you can skip sales tax via the free port's informal economy. The crate moves from your unit to the buyer's unit, and the money moves from her Swiss bank account to yours.

The downside is you'll never see those sunflowers hanging on your wall.


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