Many California counties are still seeing more people move out than move in, unlike in Maine, new data showed.
The Census Bureau’s population change estimates show how the country’s 3,143 counties and county equivalents grew or shrank between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025.
Business Insider looked at what net domestic migration, or people moving in from within the US minus leaving for somewhere else domestically, looked like across the country. You can hover over the following map to see the rates:
All counties in Maine and New Hampshire, and over 80% of the counties in Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Kentucky, had more people moving in than out. Hawaii, Alaska, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and California were among the states that had more counties or equivalents with negative net domestic migration than positive ones.
“Domestic migration patterns continue to redistribute the population from the largest counties to less populous ones,” the agency said. “Collectively, the 50 counties with 1 million or more people in 2025 had a net domestic migration loss of 637,634.” Los Angeles County, California, and Miami-Dade County, Florida, had large losses.
When adjusting counties with at least 20,000 people by their July 1, 2024, population, Jasper County, South Carolina, and Brunswick County, North Carolina, had the highest positive net domestic migration rates.
Meanwhile, Vernon Parish, Louisiana, and Miami-Dade County, Florida, had the highest negative net domestic migration rates.
Cooler population growth
Many counties continued to increase in overall population, but not as quickly as before.
“Among the 2,066 counties that grew between 2023 and 2024, nearly 8 in 10 saw their growth slow or reverse direction in 2025,” the Census Bureau said. “In many cases, counties already in decline saw losses accelerate.”
Net international migration, or people coming to the US minus coming out, took a toll on populations.
“The nation’s largest counties like those in the New York metro area are often international migration hubs, gaining large numbers of international migrants and losing people that move to other parts of the country via domestic migration,” George Hayward, a Census Bureau demographer, said in a news release. “With fewer gains from international migration, these types of counties saw their population growth diminish or even turn into loss.”
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