As the old saying goes, "I wasn't born in Texas but I got here as fast as I could." That continues to ring true for more and more people, as Texas again tops U-Haul's annual growth survey for 2025. This year marked a return to the number one spot for Texas, and the seventh time in the last 10 years the Lone Star State has topped the list. At the other end, California is number one for resident departures for the sixth straight year. "It's certainly not a surprise to me," says Chuck Devore, chief national officer for the Texas Public Policy Foundation (and California transplant). "I moved here in 2011 from California with my family, driven out of the state by the regulatory and tax burden."
Since relocating to Texas, DeVore has tracked rental truck fees to gauge the growing gap in demand between Texas and California. "(U-Haul) charges more or less depending on where you're going, due to the cost of getting their trucks back to a lower demand state, and that is seen in the rates real time," he tells KTRH. "And right now, it costs about 1.8 times more to rent a vehicle from California to Texas, than it does from Texas to California."
Further bolstering this trend was a report last year that showed Texas is on pace to surpass California as the nation's most populous state within 20 years.
And it's not just California-to-Texas. The overall trend in U-Haul's rankings is red states-to-blue states. Seven of the top 10 states for growth have Republican governors and went Republican in last year's presidential election, while 9 of the bottom 10 have Democrat governors.
"This survey speaks to affordability, because with U-Haul they're measuring people who are doing it for themselves, middle class Americans," says DeVore. "So what U-Haul is really capturing is average Americans, where are they going to try to get a better life for themselves and their family, or to start families."
Photo: Stone RF