Domestic Migration To Texas Falls By Half In Last Year

Texas has been a major hub of movers the last few years, and really close to the last decade. People have been fleeing Democrat-led states to come here, and we have also seen a huge surge of both illegal international immigration. Of course, Texas is a great state in which to live, but the benefits of lower taxes and family-friendly policies is a huge draw.

However, after years of a huge surge in growth, some of the numbers have tailed off the last year. Texas did indeed have the largest population gain of any state, but the net domestic migration seems to have fallen. In fact, it fell by half compared to 2023. Just 85,000 people domestically migrated to Texas in 2024, compared to 191,000 the previous year.

Bill King of Rice University's Baker Institute says people are still coming to the state, but the crackdown on immigration will continue dropping out numbers.

"Given where this administration is headed, which is the feelings of the country...I do not think we will have that kind of robust international immigration the next few years," he says.

So, the flood of international immigration slows down. But that does not explain the drop in domestic movers coming to Texas. Over 240,000 people fled California in the last year, with some moving to Texas, though most have apparently found new places.

According to King, there is a variety of factors that can play a role in the decline.

"It could be something as simple as the oil business is down a little bit right now...the population is getting older now, the older you are the less likely you are to move," says King. "There are a lot of different factors that can go into it."

He adds one of those factors could be the interest rates, which remain high. That has discouraged people moving even within their own cities, let alone to another state.

But really, it is just a broad, complex problem that could be attributed to anything.

"We like these simple narratives, we have low regulations, people hate California, and they are moving to Texas...certainly, there is some truth to that, but the phenomenon is a lot more complicated than that," King says.

He says as well that a big of a slow to the growth is not a bad thing, just a reality of the times.