Los Angeles County lost 53,934 residents between July 2024 and July 2025 — more than any other county in the nation, and nearly five times the next-largest numeric decline. New York City itself shed 12,196 residents in the same period, the steepest one-year drop of any U.S. city. These aren’t estimates from a survey or a moving-company press release — they’re the U.S. Census Bureau’s official Vintage 2025 population estimates, and they tell a clear story about where America’s population map is thinning out. This report breaks down the 10 counties and metro cores that lost the most residents in 2026’s estimate cycle, using Census Bureau and IRS migration data, and explains why growth is slowing even in places that spent a decade adding people.
Quick answer: Los Angeles County, CA lost the most residents in raw numbers (-53,934), followed by Pinellas County, FL, Miami-Dade County, FL, and Queens County, NY. The common driver isn’t a single factor — it’s a sharp, nationwide drop in international immigration combined with continued domestic out-migration from expensive coastal metros.
The 10 Counties Losing the Most Residents in 2026
The table below ranks the largest numeric population declines among U.S. counties for the period July 1, 2024 to July 1, 2025, as reported in the Census Bureau’s 2025 county population estimates release. Each of these counties anchors a major metro area, so the list functions as a de facto ranking of the metro cores losing the most people.
| Rank | County | Anchor City | Net Change, 2024–2025 |
| 1 | Los Angeles County, CA | Los Angeles | -53,934 |
| 2 | Pinellas County, FL | St. Petersburg / Clearwater | -11,834 |
| 3 | Miami-Dade County, FL | Miami | -10,115 |
| 4 | Queens County, NY | Queens (NYC) | -8,852 |
| 5 | Orange County, CA | Anaheim / Santa Ana | -8,520 |
| 6 | San Diego County, CA | San Diego | -5,294 |
| 7 | Shelby County, TN | Memphis | -5,212 |
| 8 | Kings County, NY | Brooklyn (NYC) | -4,694 |
| 9 | Dallas County, TX | Dallas | -2,616 |
| 10 | Ventura County, CA / Bernalillo County, NM (tied) | Ventura / Albuquerque | -2,580 each |
Three things stand out immediately. First, California claims four of the ten spots (Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, and Ventura counties), confirming that the state’s much-discussed outmigration story is still playing out at the county level, not just in headline state totals. Second, two Florida counties — Pinellas and Miami-Dade — appear despite Florida posting some of the strongest statewide inbound migration numbers in the country, a split we unpack below. Third, New York City shows up twice through its constituent boroughs (Queens and Kings/Brooklyn), even though the city as a whole is not among the fastest-shrinking places by percentage.
Why the Nation’s Biggest Metros Are Shrinking
The headline reason isn’t a mass exodus — it’s a collapse in the number of new arrivals from abroad. According to the Census Bureau, net international migration fell 54%, from 2.7 million to 1.3 million between the two most recent annual estimate periods, and the Bureau calls this “the single largest factor in the national population growth slowdown.” Large metro areas depend heavily on international migration to offset domestic out-migration and below-replacement birth rates, so when that inflow drops, counties that were merely treading water start losing people outright.
The average metro-area growth rate fell from 1.1% in 2024 to 0.6% in 2025, according to the same release. That’s not a recession-level collapse, but it’s enough to flip a slow-growth county into negative territory — which is exactly what happened in Los Angeles, Miami-Dade, and Pinellas counties.
Border and gateway metros felt it hardest
The slowdown wasn’t evenly distributed. Laredo, Texas saw its growth rate fall from 3.2% in 2024 to just 0.2% in 2025, while Yuma, Arizona dropped from 3.3% to 1.4%, and El Centro, California flipped from 1.2% growth to a 0.7% decline. All three are border metros that had been among the fastest-growing places in the country when immigration was running high — and all three cooled sharply as that pipeline narrowed.
New York City’s Population Drop, Explained
New York City’s citywide loss of 12,196 residents is the largest numeric decline of any U.S. city, but it masks a more complicated regional picture. Zooming out to the full metro area, the Census Bureau’s own analysis of the broader New York-Newark-Jersey City metro found it lost nearly 277,000 people to domestic out-migration in 2020–2021 before staging a partial recovery, adding more than 213,000 people between 2023 and 2024 as outmigration eased. In other words, the metro as a whole has been clawing back some of its pandemic-era losses even as the core city and inner boroughs like Queens and Brooklyn continue to shed residents on net.
IRS tax-return migration data tells a consistent story at the state level: New York lost 71,987 tax filers and $9.9 billion in adjusted gross income in the most recent complete filing-year comparison tracked by the Tax Foundation using IRS Statistics of Income data. Departing New York filers reported average incomes of roughly $62,633 — meaningfully higher than the state average — which is why the fiscal impact of the city’s population loss tends to outweigh the headline resident count.
California’s Four-County Exodus
Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, and Ventura counties combined lost more than 70,000 residents in a single year, and the pattern matches what IRS migration data has shown for several consecutive filing years. The Tax Foundation’s analysis of IRS Statistics of Income records found California lost 100,397 tax filers and $11.9 billion in adjusted gross income, the largest net loss of any state by both measures. The IRS’s own SOI Migration Data tracks these flows down to the county-to-county level, showing exactly which destination counties are absorbing departing Southern Californians — frequently Maricopa County, Arizona and counties in Texas and Nevada.
What’s notable is that Los Angeles County’s decline (-53,934) happened even as the broader LA-Long Beach-Anaheim metro area gained more than 41,000 residents between 2023 and 2024 in an earlier estimate period, a reminder that county-level and metro-level trends can diverge within the same region as growth shifts to outer suburbs and exurban counties.
Florida’s Surprising Losses in Pinellas and Miami-Dade
Florida is the second-ranked destination state on the U-Haul Growth Index for 2025, yet two of its most established counties — Pinellas (Tampa Bay) and Miami-Dade (Miami) — both cracked the top three counties losing residents nationally. This isn’t a contradiction; it reflects a split between Florida’s older, already-built-out urban cores and its faster-growing suburban and exurban counties in Central Florida and along the I-4 corridor. Pinellas County, one of the most densely developed counties in the state with little room for new housing, has been losing residents to less expensive counties nearby even as Florida overall keeps adding people. Miami-Dade faces a similar dynamic, compounded by among the highest home-insurance and housing-cost burdens in the state.
What a Declining Metro Means If You’re the One Moving
A metro losing population doesn’t automatically mean it’s a bad place to live — but it usually means specific, predictable market conditions: softer rental demand, slower home-price appreciation compared to inbound metros, and (in cities like Los Angeles and Miami) a widening gap between how expensive it is to stay and how much cheaper nearby metros have become. If you’re relocating out of one of the counties on this list, the practical takeaway is to research your destination county’s own migration trend before committing — a county losing residents to its own suburbs is a very different market than one losing residents to another state entirely.
Quick win: Before booking a move out of a declining county, pull that county’s IRS SOI county-to-county migration data directly — it’s free, it’s public, and it shows exactly which counties are gaining the people your county is losing, which is often a better read on real housing-market direction than a metro-wide headline number.
How This Compares to the 2010s Domestic Migration Pattern
Large coastal gateway metros — New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, and Washington — were already losing population through domestic out-migration for most of the 2010s, a trend that was temporarily masked by strong international immigration. As international arrivals decelerate again in the current estimate cycle, that underlying domestic out-migration dynamic is reasserting itself, which is why several of the counties on this list (Los Angeles, Miami-Dade) are metros that also led out-migration rankings a decade ago. This is less a new trend than an old one resuming after a pause.
How the Census Bureau Actually Calculates These Numbers
It’s worth understanding what’s behind the headline figures, because “population loss” gets thrown around loosely in real estate marketing. The Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 estimates combine three components for every county: births minus deaths (natural change), net domestic migration (people moving in from or out to other U.S. counties), and net international migration (people arriving from or leaving to other countries). A county can gain people through births while still losing population overall if domestic and international out-migration outweighs that natural increase — which is exactly the mechanism behind Los Angeles and Miami-Dade counties’ declines, since both still see more births than deaths locally.
This methodology is also why the estimates released in 2026 can look different from a Realtor’s or moving company’s internal “top moving destinations” list. Those private datasets typically track only their own customers’ bookings, while the Census Bureau’s numbers are built from administrative records — IRS address changes, Medicare enrollment data, and Census Bureau survey estimates — covering the entire resident population, not just people who happened to book with a specific company. That’s also why this report leans on Census and IRS data specifically rather than any single moving company’s internal booking trends: it’s the only dataset that captures everyone, not just customers of one brand.
Frequently Asked Questions About Cities Losing Residents in 2026
Which U.S. city lost the most residents in the most recent Census estimate?
New York City had the largest numeric population decline of any U.S. city, losing 12,196 residents between July 2024 and July 2025, according to the Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 city and town population estimates.
Which county lost the most residents overall?
Los Angeles County, California lost 53,934 residents in the same period — the largest numeric decline of any U.S. county, and more than four times the second-largest loss.
Is California still losing residents to other states in 2026?
Yes. IRS Statistics of Income migration data shows California lost more tax filers (100,397) and more adjusted gross income ($11.9 billion) than any other state in the most recent complete filing-year comparison, and four California counties rank among the ten largest county-level population losses.
Why are Florida counties losing residents if Florida is a top destination state?
Florida’s statewide gains are concentrated in Central Florida, suburban, and exurban counties. Older, already-built-out urban counties like Pinellas and Miami-Dade are simultaneously losing residents to less expensive counties nearby, even as the state overall keeps growing.
What’s driving the national slowdown in metro population growth?
Primarily a 54% drop in net international migration, from 2.7 million to 1.3 million between the two most recent annual estimate periods, according to the Census Bureau. Metro areas that depended on immigration to offset domestic out-migration are now growing much more slowly, or shrinking outright.
Where can I check migration data for my own county before moving?
The IRS publishes free, public county-to-county SOI migration data based on tax-return address changes, and the Census Bureau publishes annual county and metro population estimates. Both let you see exactly which counties a given area is gaining or losing residents to.
The Bottom Line
The 2026 estimate cycle’s biggest population losers aren’t struggling Rust Belt towns — they’re some of the country’s largest, most expensive counties: Los Angeles, Miami-Dade, Pinellas, Queens, Orange, San Diego. The common thread across nearly all ten is high housing costs combined with a national immigration slowdown that removed the one inflow that had been offsetting domestic out-migration. If you’re planning a move into or out of one of these counties, treat the county-level trend as a starting point, then check the destination-level detail in IRS SOI data before you assume a headline “top growth state” ranking tells the whole story for the specific county you’re targeting.
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