Texas supplied the most new residents to nine other states in 2024 despite experiencing the largest population growth this decade, according to Census Bureau migration data released this week. The findings reveal that Texas, with 31 million residents and a net gain of 2.1 million people between 2020 and 2024, is simultaneously losing residents to a wide geographic swath of the country including Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Oklahoma.
The migration patterns underscore how the nation’s largest states—Texas, California, Florida and New York—dominate both in-migration and out-migration flows. Population size itself drives the volume of people leaving, experts say, as large populations naturally generate large numbers of both arrivals and departures.
Texas, California, Florida and New York—the nation’s four most populous states—dominated the movement of residents across state lines in 2024, according to Census Bureau data released this week. Each supplied more new residents to other states than any other source.
State-by-State Migration Patterns
Texas supplied new residents to nine states: Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Oklahoma. The data reveals a paradox: Texas, which gained 2.1 million residents between 2020 and 2024—more than any other state in absolute terms—is simultaneously losing residents to a wide geographic swath of the country.
“The obvious and primary answer is size,” said Dudley Poston, professor emeritus of sociology at Texas A&M University. “There’s got to be more people leaving Texas than leaving other states because of the population size of Texas.”
California, the nation’s most populous state with 39 million residents, supplied the most new residents to the western states of Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Texas and Washington. The state also was the top source of new residents to Tennessee, a destination that has established what demographers describe as a pipeline to Southern California’s entertainment industry.
Florida, the third most populous state with 23 million residents, dominated new-resident supply to Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Ohio. Florida has gained 1.8 million residents this decade, the second-largest increase of any state. Yet rising housing costs and insurance premiums are prompting some residents to leave.
“It is no longer as affordable a relocation or retirement option as it once was,” said Richard Doty, a research demographer at the University of Florida. Doty said job opportunities in cities like Atlanta and Charlotte for recent college graduates may also be attracting Florida residents away from the state.
New York supplied the most new residents to Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Florida itself, while Illinois provided the largest number of new residents to Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin.
Helen You, interim director of the Texas Demographic Center, said the pattern is not coincidental: “Large populations naturally generate large volumes of both in-and-out migrants.”
Immigration and Domestic Migration
For most states in 2024, people arriving from foreign countries represented the top source of new residents. The exceptions—states where domestic migration from another U.S. state exceeded foreign immigration—included Idaho, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
The Census Bureau data captures migration patterns recorded before the immigration crackdown that began under the second Trump administration. New population estimates for 2025 are scheduled for release next week.