Voting With Their Feet: States Ranked by Migration and Population Growth

The most honest poll in America

Surveys measure what people say. Migration data measures what they do. The Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 estimates, covering July 2024 through July 2025, count every state's net gain or loss from Americans moving between states. Thirty-one states came out ahead, up from 27 the year before (Census Bureau, Vintage 2025).

The winners are unambiguous. North Carolina led the nation with a net gain of 84,064 domestic migrants. Texas followed at 67,299, South Carolina at 66,622, and Tennessee at 42,389 (Census Bureau, Vintage 2025). The South captured nine of the 15 largest gains (NAR analysis, 2026). Measured per capita, South Carolina, Idaho, and North Carolina were the strongest magnets in the country.

The framework pays no attention to which party governs these states. It counts moving vans. If that principle produces discomfort, the discomfort belongs to the reader, not the data.

The Florida surprise

The single most important change in the 2025 data is Florida. For most of this decade Florida was the migration story: 310,892 net domestic migrants in 2022, 183,646 in 2023. In the year ending July 2025 it gained just 22,517 and ranked 8th (Census Bureau, Vintage 2025).

That is not a reversal. Florida is still gaining. But a 93 percent decline from the 2022 peak is a structural signal, and the likeliest mechanisms are visible in other datasets: home prices that rose faster than incomes, an insurance cost shock, and the end of the pandemic relocation wave. Housing analysts also note a lock-in effect working in the other direction; homeowners in states like Illinois who might have sold and moved south are staying put rather than trade a low mortgage rate for a high one (ResiClub analysis of Census data, 2026).

Colorado tells a similar story in miniature. A reliable gainer for years, it flipped to a net domestic loser in the 2025 estimates (Census Bureau, Vintage 2025). Affordability is not a talking point in this data. It is the mechanism.

Who is losing, and how badly

California posted the largest net domestic outflow in the country, about 229,100 people in one year. New York followed at roughly 137,600. Massachusetts lost about 37,900 and Maryland about 27,400 (Census Bureau, Vintage 2025). Illinois and New Jersey remained in the top tier of losers, extending losses that have run for more than a decade.

The Northeast was nearly uniform: every state in the region except Delaware, Maine, and New Hampshire lost more movers than it gained (Census Bureau, Vintage 2025). Louisiana was the South's outlier, landing among the ten largest losers.

Two cautions keep this honest. First, domestic migration is not total population change; California and New York still have births and international arrivals. Second, the pace of out-migration from both states has slowed from the pandemic peak. The direction has not changed. The magnitude has.

The immigration variable just changed everything

The Vintage 2025 estimates carry a second headline: net international migration fell in every state, a historic decline that slowed total U.S. population growth sharply (Census Bureau, 2026; Brookings analysis, 2026). This matters for reading the table. States like California, New York, and New Jersey long papered over domestic losses with international arrivals. With that inflow down everywhere, domestic migration now drives total growth to a degree it has not in decades.

That is why South Carolina, at 1.5 percent, was the fastest-growing state in America in the year ending July 2025, followed by Idaho at 1.4 percent, North Carolina at 1.3 percent, Texas at 1.2 percent, and Utah at 1.0 percent (Census Bureau, Vintage 2025). Every one of them is a domestic migration winner. The states people choose are now, almost mechanically, the states that grow.