Leaving California is still a thing, but it’s nothing like 2021 at the height of migration activity. Let’s look at some fresh stats today from the Census Bureau to identify how many people left and came to the state last year.
UPCOMING SPEAKING GIGS:
2/11/26 Lodi Association of Realtors event
2/12/26 Answer Home Loans Event at PCAR (register)
2/20/26 PCAR
2/26/26 NAPRM Luncheon
3/4/26 Nick Sadek Sotheby’s International Realty (private)
3/12/26 Made 4 More
3/18/26 Derek Sandoval Office (EXP)
3/19/26 Yolo YPN event
3/25/26 Coldwell Banker EDH
4/9/26 Realtist Association of Sacramento
4/14/26 Culbertson & Gray
6/4/26 Wisdom Wednesday in Elk Grove
10/2/26 PCAR
NEW DATA
The Census Bureau just released fresh state-to-state migration data over the past few days. This covers all of 2024, and it’s the latest stuff out there (despite it being one year old). There is also some general net domestic migration data through mid-2025, but it doesn’t have the details below.
THE PEOPLE WHO ARE MOVING
In today’s real estate market, so many owners feel stuck in place, but people who are leaving the state are one of the categories to watch because they have incentive to participate in the housing market regardless of what prices and rates are doing. Lifestyle is colliding with market conditions.
WHERE ARE CALIFORNIANS MOVING?
Where are you seeing Californians move? I’d love to hear in the comments. Based on the latest Census Bureau data, here are the top destinations from last year. Stats show 662,053 residents moved out of the state last year, whereas 408,445 people moved into California. This means there were 253,608 more people who left the state than came. For any onlookers, some of these numbers sound really large, but I think I can speak for most residents in saying we can’t tell any difference with traffic, rent prices, or home prices. In other words, it’s not a ghost town over here.
And here’s a horizontal bar chart instead. What do you like better? Vertical or horizontal? I felt mixed, so I wanted to share both.
WHO IS MOVING TO CALIFORNIA?
Yes, people do move to California. In fact, 408,445 people moved to the state according to these stats. Texas is almost always the number one sender. The joke is these stats represent everyone moving back to California, but I don’t have any way to prove that. Overall, California has more people leaving than coming, so inbound migration charts are more subdued than outbound charts.
And a horizontal chart. Are you team vertical or team horizontal?
And an LL Cool J migration meme… If you know, you know.
NET DOMESTIC MIGRATION
Here’s a cool chart from ResiClub to show net domestic migration in California through the years. Net domestic migration is the difference between people leaving and coming (this is not total population). These stats go through July 2025, so they are slightly different than 2024 numbers. Through mid-2025, the were 229,000 more people who left the state than came. Keep in mind, we almost always see negative net domestic migration in California. In fact, if we looked at this chart over the past 35 years, there are only three positive years.
POPULATION DIDN’T DECLINE BY 229,000 LAST YEAR
Net domestic migration above is NOT total population. Net domestic migration only shows the difference between people leaving and coming. Total population is about births, deaths, and migration patterns. In other words, don’t go around saying, “Bro, our population lost 229,000 people in one year.” Instead, we might say, “Bro, we saw 229,000 more people leave than come.” That’s the gist. Ultimately, California’s population lost 9,465 people from the previous year when we consider stats from July 2024 to July 2025. This figure is when we account for births, deaths, outbound migration, inbound migration, and international migration.
By the way, the United States population slowed down last year. It still grew, but it was the slowest growth rate since 2020. Read more about that here.
THE VIBE ISN’T THE SAME IN ALL STATES (BUT IT’S NOT 2021)
Migration isn’t what it was in 2021 since it’s not as easy to move since rates are no longer below 3%, and we aren’t seeing as much remote work. With that said, it’s not 2021 in the stats, but some states did see improved migration from 2024 to 2025. Here are some images from ResiClub. I’m a pro member, so I’m not totally sure if this link is viewable to everyone or not (see Datawrapper with all 50 states).
WHO IS MOVING? AND WHY?
People move for so many reasons in California, and research points toward housing costs, work and politics being the major factors (not that we needed research to tell us that). Here are some cool charts from the Public Policy Institute of California. Check out their post with much more commentary. This organization puts out amazing stats. Highly recommend.
WHO IS MOVING TO CALIFORNIA THE LEAST?
Just in case you wondered who is moving the least to California. These are mostly smaller states. It would be interesting to run these stats based on a percentage of population, but that’s not in my bandwidth right now.
WHERE ARE CALIFORNIANS MOVING THE LEAST?
The biggest target is Texas, but what is the smallest target? Here’s a look at areas residents moved the very least based on Census Bureau data.
LASTLY, OBNOXIOUSLY LONG CHARTS
These charts are likely way too long to share on social media, but I wanted to give an exhaustive view of outbound and inbound migration for every state (and DC and Puerto Rico). I didn’t want to only show top areas above, so I hope this helps, even though these images aren’t as sharable.
Thanks for being here.
Questions: What stands out to you above? Where are you seeing people move to and from the most? I’d love to hear your take.
If you liked this post, subscribe by email (or RSS). Thanks for being here.
In So Cal, I am seeing people flee to Idaho and Tennessee. The Idaho migrants seem to be politically motivated, Tennessee (and Texas) are wealthy folks looking to flee income taxes. I leave California about every six to eight weeks, but I come back every single time. Why? Because I love it here. Politics and money dont dictate my decisions. Beauty does. Plus the surf is flat in Idaho and Tennessee
Thanks Mark. Yeah, hard to catch waves in other states. Do you remember the classic ’80s movie, North Shore? Rick Kane could catch waves in an Arizona wave tank. Haha.
I find motivation can be different as you said, and it’s not always just one thing. For instance, even when someone says it’s political, chances are that person is moving to a state with lower prices too (hard to be higher than CA though, to be fair), so there is some financial motivation there too. In short, there are many layers. I have family that moved to Idaho in 2019, and I’ve enjoyed visiting Idaho now.
Someone is having fun with charts!
The only thing I’d add to this is international migration. I’d like to see that included in the discussion since it’s obvious California attracted significant numbers of foreign immigrants to boost numbers. This seems like half the picture and more about vibes than actual impact on traffic and housing. Of course, politics has likely had a huge impact on foreigners moving into the state over the past year.
Thanks, Joe. Yeah, that would be an extra layer. I haven’t seen that released yet. I think there is another release of migration data coming in a few months. If I’m wrong about that, someone can correct me. When that happens though, I’m happy to do another post if it’s something interesting to talk about. With that said, leaving and coming are two really interesting categories that people tend to watn to hear about, so hopefully there is some value here.
We also have to consider births and deaths. Like I said above, population overall went down slightly through July 2025 in the entire state by about 9,000 people, but we don’t really have the exact figures for that yet as far as I can tell. Obviously, births, deaths, and international migration collectively represent a net total of 200,000 since net domestic migration was down about 229,000, but I’m not certain which categories make up the stats here.
Agreed on politics. This is absolutely something to watch ahead. Population decline is predicted in quite a few countries in decades ahead, and it’s going to be interesting to see what happens here (and how immigration policy changes as a result of population change).
Thank you for all the stats. Fun stuff to play with. I wouldn’t mind moving to California from Oregon. I like the weather, but it feels like California is more in the bullseye for climate change extremes than other areas so that and high prices would give me pause.
Thanks, Gary. Yeah, I hear you. We’ve had some extremes in recent time for sure.
I can’t imagine the unemployment rate with Walmart leaving and all the supporting companies, delivery people,
medical, hair and banking sub stores in Walmart gone.
That would be a big hit. I think there is a narrative floating around about Walmart leaving, but it sounds like they are closing some stores that aren’t performing instead of leaving altogether. It sounds like some news about closure is coming from Truth Social. The CA Governor’s Office clarified that 303 stories in California are open. This is sort of a breaking narrative, so I hope Walmart will speak into this at some point.
One more thing. It looks like Walmart opened up a brand new store in California in Eastvale in January 2026. I dug around, and it looks like there are five stores that goes the axe in CA. If anyone has more definitive information, I’m open ears. And thanks everyone for being cool in the comments. Let’s always talk shop and respect each other.
Locals, I see that Walmart in Granite Bay closed last year. Any idea why?
Yes definitely interested in international migration into Calif through the years.
Horizontal – easier to read the state names by far and can still get a good idea of the #’s.
Thank you. So far horizontal is unanimous from what I’ve heard on social media. Appreciate the feedback. I’m leaning that way also. I’m actually going to do some charts that I think will be even easier to read. I’ll likely push those out on socials in the next couple of days.
Team horizontal here! And we’re one example of a family moving back to Cali after living in Utah. Best decision of the past decade for us!
Thanks, Steve. I think I’m a full horizontal convert by now. In truth, I think the charts I made that I didn’t share in this post are even better. So glad you moved here. And see you on Tuesday when we assemble that long board (finally). 🙂
This exodus from CA has broken two business models for realtors: move-up buyers, referral
Move-ups became move-outs and referrals went to zero when the referrers moved out.
Thanks, Jay. Yeah, this is a tough part of the business when things change. We have to keep increasing the size of our network over time due to things like this.