According to new figures published by Registers of Scotland, there has been an exponential growth in ownership among firms registered in places including Jersey, the Isle of Man, British Virgin Islands, Bahamas and Cayman Islands.

The figures highlighted a total of 1.86 million registered titles in Scotland’s Land Register on December 31 2021. In total, 93.1% belonged to people or businesses with addresses in Scotland, while 5.2% were in the rest of the UK and 1.5% were registered abroad.

Only six of the nation’s 32 local authority areas had more than 1,000 titles owned overseas, these included Edinburgh with 4,962; Glasgow with 3,625; Fife with 1,484; Aberdeen City with 1,288; Highland with 1,280 and South Lanarkshire with 1,028.

The majority of these titles, 84%, were owned by individuals, in the USA, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Australia and Ireland. Nevertheless, 11.6% of the properties owned overseas were registered to limited companies, The Press and Journal reports.

Of this 11.6%, the highest numbers were in Jersey, Isle of Man, the British Virgin Islands, Guernsey, Luxembourg, the Bahamas, the USA, the Netherlands, Gibraltar, Cayman Islands, Hong Kong and Seychelles.

The British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Hong Kong and Jersey are in the Tax Justice Network “top 10” of places most involved underpayment of corporation tax.

The Registers of Scotland report said that 60% of all Scottish titles owned or leased by companies from outwith the UK were accounted for by the Isle of Man, Jersey, British Virgin Islands and Guernsey.

Compared to figures for the end of 2017, the number in Jersey had increased from 298 to 594, in the Isle of Man it was up from 214 to 583, and in the British Virgin Islands the number had soared from 258 to 414.

Companies based in Guernsey’s interest more than doubled from 154 to 347, while Luxembourg increased its interest from 111 to 178.