Hunter Biden has quietly pulled up stakes and left the country amid claims he is $17 million in debt and living overseas, the Daily Mail can reveal. 

The disclosure came in a new legal filing submitted by his attorney Barry Coburn on April 6, in Washington DC, where the first son is being sued by his former attorneys at Winston & Strawn.

The court filing bluntly states 'Mr Biden lives abroad', and argues that the former First Son 'cannot afford' to pay off his outstanding legal fees. 

The law firm defended Hunter, 56, in his tax and gun crimes cases, as well as other legal battles, but claims he failed to pay bills 'substantially in excess of $50,000'.

On a podcast appearance last year Hunter himself claimed he was in '$17 million of debt.' 

Coburn declined to comment to the Daily Mail, and did not specify where in the world Hunter, 56, now lives – but it's not America.

However, last year Hunter was spotted spending time in South Africa, the birthplace of his wife Melissa, 39, the mother of his youngest child.

The couple were seen on a trip to Cape Town in May 2025, prompting President Donald Trump to revoke his Secret Service detail over the cost of foreign travel.

He was pictured in the affluent neighborhood of Sea Point, parking a rented Toyota hatchback – a far cry from the chauffeured, armored SUVs to which he was accustomed as a member of the First Family.

'There are as many as 18 people on this Detail, which is ridiculous!' Trump posted on Truth Social, announcing he had recalled Hunter's federal protection team.

Hunter dropped further hints that he was planning a new home, in an interview with South African podcaster Joshua Rubin in November.

'We're trying to be between Cape Town and the States. We go back and forth,' he said.

'I've fallen madly in love with Cape Town. You guys don't know how good you have it here. It's the most beautiful city in the world.'

Hunter's May 2025 South Africa trip was the same month that father Joe Biden, 83, revealed he is battling 'aggressive' prostate cancer.

'Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places,' Joe wrote on social media.

A spokesman said at the time that the former president's cancer had spread to the bone and was graded a Gleason score of nine, the most aggressive kind, though Joe told reporters that his 'prognosis is good', after making the announcement.

Hunter has been spending time in the US despite his new professed foreign residency, including an Easter meal with his family this month.

His half-sister Ashley posted a photo on Instagram Wednesday showing Hunter sitting next to his father and opposite stepmother Jill, with his son Beau on his lap, and surrounded by several other young family members in Santa Ynez, California.

It is unclear who paid for the 10,000-mile trip from Cape Town to California – as Hunter's own lawyer claims he is broke.

Hunter's attorney Coburn wrote in the April 6 filing that Hunter is 'impecunious', a fancy word for penniless.

Coburn wrote Hunter didn't even have money to pay for experts to go through his emails and electronic devices as part of the lawsuit's discovery process.

'We have not engaged a billing consultant or forensic accountant to review the bills, just as we have not engaged an e-discovery vendor,' he wrote. 'We cannot afford it.'

However, in his November podcast interview Hunter indicated he had been indulging in 'super fine dining' in the South African city.

'The food here is incredible. It is across the board the most consistently good food from the corner burger place to the super fine dining,' he told Rubin.

He acknowledged the 'privilege' of being a Biden, but added: 'You want accountability? Look at the past six years of my life and the $17 million of debt that I'm in, as it relates to my legal fees.'

Hotshot Winston & Strawn attorney Abbe Lowell represented Hunter in courtroom showdowns with the Justice Department in Delaware and California, over gun and tax crimes respectively.

The law firm filed a complaint in DC Superior Court in June last year, claiming Hunter owed 'substantially in excess of $50,000 in fees and interest' after almost three years of representation by the firm.

The disgraced Biden son had been relying on 'sugar brother' Kevin Morris, a top Hollywood attorney, to pay his bills.

Morris loaned Hunter more than $6.5 million at 5% interest, according to a letter from his lawyer to the House Oversight Committee, including at least $2.2 million for his IRS debts.

The interest alone on the total sum would cost $325,000 per year.

Morris earned a large part of his fortune representing the creators of TV show South Park in a $935 million deal with ViacomCBS.

The wealthy Hollywood attorney flew Hunter to his criminal case hearings in Delaware on his private jet.

Hunter began to claw back cash with a burgeoning art career, selling paintings for a total $1.5 million between 2021 and 2024 to Democrat donors and family friends.

But his father leaving the White House coincided with a crash in demand for the works.

'I have only sold 1 piece of art for $36,000,’ since December 2023, he wrote in a March 2025 court filing.

Hunter had promised to give some of his works to his seven-year-old daughter Navy, who he conceived with former employee and stripper Lunden Roberts, but has failed to hand any over, Roberts claimed in Arkansas court filings in January.

He is on the hook for a reported $5,000 a month in child support for Navy.  

Last year he asked a Los Angeles federal judge to dismiss his lawsuit against his nemesis, former Trump White House aide Garrett Ziegler, for allegedly hacking his laptop, claiming he no longer had the cash to fight the case.

Ziegler, who runs right-wing nonprofit Marco Polo, always denied the claims, pointing out that Hunter abandoned his laptop at a Delaware computer store and left passwords to his backup on the computer.

Marco Polo published an extensive report about evidence for alleged crimes contained on Hunter's laptop, and was the first to notice the April 6 filing claiming Hunter has left the US.