Where Americans Are Moving in 2026 (Real Data)
United Van Lines 2025 study + Q1 2026 indicators: top inbound and outbound states + metros.
Three states moved a quarter of all interstate migration in 2025. Oregon, West Virginia, and South Carolina absorbed the most newcomers per interstate move at 65%, 62%, and 61% inbound respectively, per United Van Lines’ 49th Annual National Movers Study released December 2025. On the other side, New Jersey lost the most: 62% of its interstate moves were people leaving, not arriving.
Q1 2026 indicators from Redfin migration data and the major moving-company tracking systems show the same direction. Smaller metros with shorter commutes and cheaper housing keep pulling people out of the high-cost coastal anchors. New York, California, and Colorado are still bleeding residents. The Carolinas, Oregon, Idaho, and the smaller Florida and Texas metros are still absorbing them.
Here’s the real data, the financial math behind each move, and what it actually means if you’re thinking about doing this yourself.
Where Are Americans Moving in 2026? The Short Answer
The biggest 2026 shifts are people leaving New Jersey, New York, California, and Colorado for Oregon, the Carolinas, West Virginia, Idaho, and the smaller metros around them. The top inbound cities are Eugene-Springfield OR (85% inbound), Wilmington NC (83%), Dover DE (79%), Fort Wayne IN (73%), and Myrtle Beach SC (72%). The top outbound cities are Hagerstown MD (88% outbound), Nassau-Suffolk NY (78%), and Pueblo CO (74%).
Top 10 Inbound States in 2026
These are the states gaining the most residents per interstate move, per the United Van Lines 2025 study with Q1 2026 indicators continuing the trend:
| Rank | State | Inbound Share |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oregon | 65% |
| 2 | West Virginia | 62% |
| 3 | South Carolina | 61% |
| 4 | Delaware | 57% |
| 5 | Minnesota | 57% |
| 6 | Idaho | 56% |
| 7 | North Carolina | 56% |
| 8 | Arkansas | 56% |
| 9 | Alabama | 55% |
| 10 | Nevada | 55% |
Oregon’s lead surprised the moving industry. The state still carries a 9.9% top income tax bracket, which conventionally pushes people out. What’s pulling them in: housing affordability outside Portland, a much milder climate than the Midwest or Mountain West, and remote workers from the Bay Area chasing a quieter pace at lower cost.
West Virginia at number two is the bigger story. WV was outbound for years. The flip is being driven by Eastern Panhandle commuters who can keep DC-area salaries while paying WV property taxes (about a third of what they’d pay in Virginia or Maryland), plus full-remote workers from the Northeast cashing out their inflated home equity and buying multiples of the square footage for half the price.
South Carolina has been on the inbound list every single year since 2018. The combination of no estate tax, mid-range income tax (5.39% for most mid-income households), and coastal small-metro options like Myrtle Beach and Charleston produces a steady inflow from New York, New Jersey, and the upper Midwest. Climate is the secondary draw.
Top 7 Outbound States (Where People Are Leaving)
| Rank | State | Outbound Share |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | 62% |
| 2 | New York | 58% |
| 3 | California | 58% |
| 4 | North Dakota | 56% |
| 5 | Colorado | 55% |
| 6 | Mississippi | 55% |
| 7 | Massachusetts | 55% |
New Jersey has topped the outbound list five years running. The reason is mostly tax: NJ has the country’s highest effective property taxes plus a 10.75% top income tax bracket on top. Add the housing cost in commutable distance to NYC and the state pays the price every year. The 2017 federal SALT cap made this much worse for high earners. Eight years on, the people who can leave are still leaving.
New York and California are the obvious entries. Both expensive, both high-tax, both losing remote workers to no-income-tax states. Q1 2026 specifically shows California’s outflow easing slightly from its 2022-2023 peak. The state is still net-negative on migration. The pace of loss has just slowed.
Colorado on the list is the surprise of 2025. Denver was an inbound darling through 2022. By 2025, cost of living there had caught up with the tech salary growth, the state added a 4.4% income tax rate that bites at higher incomes, and the outbound flow flipped positive. Some of this is people moving back to lower-cost states they originally came from.
Top 10 Inbound Metros (Where People Are Actually Landing)
| Rank | Metro | Inbound Share |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eugene-Springfield, OR | 85% |
| 2 | Wilmington, NC | 83% |
| 3 | Dover, DE | 79% |
| 4 | Fort Wayne, IN | 73% |
| 5 | Myrtle Beach, SC | 72% |
| 6 | Brownsville-Harlingen, TX | 72% |
| 7 | Salem, OR | 70% |
| 8 | Springfield, MO | 69% |
| 9 | Hickory, NC | 68% |
| 10 | Lake Charles, LA | 68% |
What’s NOT on this 2025-2026 list: Austin, Phoenix, Nashville, Tampa, Charlotte, Raleigh. These were the headline destination cities of 2020-2023. By 2026, their cost of living has caught up enough with their salary growth that the inbound surge has shifted to less-discussed mid-sized metros nearby.
People still want the same things they wanted in 2020. Lower cost, more space, milder climate, no state income tax in some cases. The destinations have just moved one tier down in size as the original Tier-1 destinations got expensive.
The interview themes are consistent across the moving studies: shorter commutes, a realistic path to homeownership at a normal income, and enough job density that nobody has to leave their career to make the math work.
Top Outbound Metros (Where People Are Leaving Behind)
| Rank | Metro | Outbound Share |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hagerstown, MD | 88% |
| 2 | Nassau-Suffolk, NY | 78% |
| 3 | Pueblo, CO | 74% |
Hagerstown’s number one spot reflects something interesting. It WAS an inbound metro for several years in the early 2020s, absorbing DC-area workers chasing affordability. By 2025, many had tried the move and decided the commute didn’t pencil. The reverse flow shows up cleanly in the data.
Nassau-Suffolk losing population year after year reflects the broader Long Island story: very high property taxes, aging housing stock, and a generation of residents heading for North Carolina and Florida.
Why Are Americans Moving in 2026? Three Real Drivers
The full data set across United Van Lines, U-Haul, and Redfin’s migration reports points at three consistent drivers behind every major flow.
1. Housing Affordability Is The Dominant Lever
A 1,500 sq ft single-family home in Eugene, Oregon costs roughly half what the same home costs in San Francisco at the same household income. Property taxes in South Carolina run about 25% of New Jersey’s effective rate. Compound the gap over 30 years of mortgage payments and you’re talking real money.
The math is brutal once you compare year-over-year cost-of-living growth against year-over-year salary growth in the highest-cost states. Salaries in NYC, LA, SF, and Boston have not kept pace with housing for the past decade. Households that can leave are doing the arithmetic and leaving.
2. Tax Flight Continues From Blue To Red
The 2017 federal SALT cap put real, ongoing pressure on residents of high-property-tax, high-income-tax states. Eight years on, residents in the top brackets in NJ, NY, CA, and MA who can work remote are still taking the deal: lower or zero state income tax, much lower property tax, and equivalent or better quality of life if they pick a metro carefully.
No-income-tax states (Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Nevada, Washington, plus partial South Dakota and Wyoming) are absorbing most of this flow. The exception is Washington, which is high-COL enough that the gain mostly accrues to higher earners.
3. Remote Work Is The Quiet Compounding Force
Pre-2020, the move-to-cheaper-city play required quitting your current job and finding a new one at the destination. That usually meant a salary cut large enough to wipe out the cost-of-living savings.
By 2026, the share of fully-remote and hybrid workers is large enough that “keep your high-COL salary, pay low-COL cost of living” is a real option for several million people. This is the single most powerful version of geographic arbitrage that exists, and it’s still playing out. Companies that mandated full return-to-office in 2024-2025 saw some of their best people leave for fully-remote competitors who let them stay where they’d already moved.
Military PCS Moves: A Different Kind Of Migration
Service members get orders. Two to four years at one duty station, then a Permanent Change of Station to the next. The Department of Defense moved roughly 400,000 personnel in 2025 alone, plus families. That’s a quiet but consistent slice of the annual migration picture that doesn’t show up in the United Van Lines civilian-mover study at all.
The financial math on a PCS move looks different from a civilian relocation in four ways.
BAH Caps Your Shelter Cost, But Not The Rest
Basic Allowance for Housing is set per-rank per-ZIP every year. It’s intended to cover median local rent or mortgage. It doesn’t always. In high-COL duty-station ZIPs like Honolulu, San Diego, the Beltway, or Colorado Springs near the Academy, out-of-pocket on top of BAH can run $300 to $800 a month. In lower-COL ZIPs like Killeen TX, Fayetteville NC, or Augusta GA, BAH often pays more than market rent and the difference becomes invisible income.
State Income Tax Follows Your Legal Residence, Not Your Station
Service members can elect to keep a no-income-tax state of legal residence and pay zero state income tax regardless of where the Pentagon sends them. Most do. Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Nevada, Washington, and Alaska are the common picks. That’s a structural advantage civilian movers don’t have, and it’s worth several thousand dollars a year compared to a service member who kept California or New York residence.
Sales Tax, Gas, And Electricity Hit The Same As Civilians
A move from Fort Liberty (NC, 7% sales tax, $3.10 gas) to Joint Base Lewis-McChord (WA, 10.3% sales tax, $5.59 gas) is a real hit to disposable income even with BAH covering housing. The car alone runs hundreds more per year at the WA gas price. Every non-grocery purchase costs 3.3% more at the register. Electricity in Honolulu costs roughly double what it does in Killeen.
Schools Matter More On A Short Timeline
Two to four years per station means a kid might attend three to five different schools before high school. The GreatSchools composite for the new duty station is more than a nice-to-have, especially because the spouse usually does the homework on neighborhoods before orders even land.
The Move-To-City Comparison tool now covers all 50 states plus DC, including 58 cities that host a major military installation across all five branches. Army: Fort Liberty (Fayetteville NC), Fort Cavazos (Killeen TX), Fort Carson (Colorado Springs), Fort Sill (Lawton OK), Fort Stewart (Hinesville GA), Fort Eisenhower (Augusta GA), Fort Jackson (Columbia SC), Fort Knox (Louisville KY), Redstone Arsenal (Huntsville AL), Joint Base Lewis-McChord (Tacoma WA), Joint Base San Antonio (Lackland + Randolph + Fort Sam Houston), Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (Anchorage AK), and Fort Wainwright (Fairbanks AK). Navy: Naval Station Norfolk (world’s largest naval base), Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (Honolulu), NAS Jacksonville and NS Mayport, NAS Pensacola (Naval Aviation training), NAS Oceana (Virginia Beach), Naval Base San Diego, NSB New London (Groton CT), US Naval Academy (Annapolis MD), Naval Station Newport and the Naval War College, and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (Portsmouth NH). Marine Corps: MCAS Miramar and MCRD San Diego. Air Force: Tinker AFB (OKC), Nellis AFB (Las Vegas), MacDill AFB (Tampa, CENTCOM HQ), Davis-Monthan AFB (Tucson), Kirtland AFB (Albuquerque), Luke AFB (Phoenix), Hill AFB (Ogden), Eielson AFB (Fairbanks), Hanscom AFB (Boston), Wright-Patterson AFB (Dayton), USAFA and Peterson SFB (Colorado Springs), Keesler AFB (Biloxi), Joint Base Charleston, Offutt AFB (Omaha, US STRATCOM HQ), Dover AFB, McConnell AFB (Wichita), Little Rock AFB, and Mountain Home AFB. The three nuclear ICBM wings: F.E. Warren AFB (Cheyenne WY), Minot AFB (ND), and Malmstrom AFB (Great Falls MT). Plus Ellsworth AFB (Rapid City SD), home of the B-1B and the future B-21 Raider, and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (Trenton NJ), the only tri-service base in the country combining Air Force, Army, and Navy commands.
If you’ve got orders, run your current station against your next one before the movers show up. Even with BAH covering housing, the disposable-income delta on a PCS can be five figures per year either direction once you account for state sales tax, fuel, electricity, your spouse’s job market in the new city, and whether you’re keeping a no-tax state of legal residence.
The Financial Math: Should You Make The Move?
The single most important question for any move is whether the disposable-income gap actually accelerates your retirement or just rearranges your monthly budget. The answer depends on whether you’re keeping your old salary, accepting a local offer, and how much of the cost-of-living savings actually translates to dollars you can invest.
Run your real numbers in our Move-To-City Financial Comparison tool. It compares any two of 117 US metros across all 50 states + DC (including Hawaii, Alaska, and 58 cities that host a major military base) on state income tax, sales tax, median rent, cost of living, fuel, electricity bills, groceries, dining/nightlife indices, schools, and FIRE-timeline impact. Data refreshes monthly for rent (Zillow ZORI), fuel and electricity (EIA), annually for tax and cost-of-living (Tax Foundation, BEA Regional Price Parities).
A few examples that pop out of the math when you plug in real numbers:
A $120,000 SF-to-Austin move (remote, same salary) frees up roughly $30,000/year in disposable income after state tax, housing, and cost-of-living adjustments. That’s about 3.5 years off a $1.5M FIRE target if every dollar of gain goes to investing.
A $150,000 NYC-to-Charlotte move (remote, same salary) frees up roughly $23,000/year in state income tax alone before any housing difference. NC has a 4.50% effective rate vs NY’s 6.85% on that income.
A $90,000 Boston-to-Raleigh-Durham move (remote, same salary) frees up roughly $18,000/year. RDU also rates 8/10 on schools versus Boston’s 7/10, which matters for families.
When Moving For Money Doesn’t Work
Two scenarios where the migration math goes wrong even when the surface numbers look great.
Salary rebases. Most companies index pay to local market. Move from SF to Austin with a new local offer, and that offer might be 70% of your SF salary. Run the real-comp math: if your new salary divided by old salary is less than your new cost-of-living index divided by old, you’re worse off in real terms even though you “saved” on rent. Our Move-To-City tool does this comparison automatically.
Lifestyle creep eats the gain. People move from NYC to Charlotte for the lower cost, then promptly buy a bigger house, a second car, and discover that the cash-flow savings vanished into furnishing the bigger lifestyle. The move only frees up real money if the new lifestyle stays calibrated to the new metro, not the old one. The first 12 months in the new city are when this is hardest to enforce.
What To Expect The Rest Of 2026
The migration moving companies expect more of the same through the rest of 2026: continued outflow from NJ, NY, CA, IL, and MA. Continued growth in the Carolinas, the smaller Florida and Texas metros, and the South generally. Oregon and Idaho stay on the inbound list. Mountain-West states slow down further as their COL catches up.
The thing to watch is whether a few of the “Tier 2” cities (Wilmington NC, Greenville SC, Fort Wayne IN) start running out of housing inventory the way Austin and Nashville did in 2021. If that happens, the inbound flow shifts again to even smaller metros within driving distance of those tier-2 hubs. The pattern is durable. The destinations rotate.
If you’re considering a move, the real question isn’t “is this a good city?” It’s “is this a good city for my specific job, salary, family situation, and 10-year financial plan?” The macro trends tell you where everyone else is going. The micro math tells you whether it works for you.
Start with the Move-To-City Comparison tool and run two or three scenarios before you commit. Same job in three different cities. New job offer vs current city. Remote salary preserved in a low-COL metro. The math shifts more than you’d expect.
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