In 2024, California lost a net 239,575 residents to domestic migration — more than any other state, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 State-to-State Migration Flows, released January 21, 2026. Yet United Van Lines’ 2025 National Movers Study names New Jersey, not California, as the nation’s top outbound state — for the eighth year running. Both are correct. They’re measuring two different things.
Quick answer: Based on United Van Lines’ official 2025 shipment data, the top five states people are leaving (by outbound share of total moves) are New Jersey (62.33%), New York (57.84%), California (57.81%), North Dakota (56.63%), and Colorado (54.98%). But Census Bureau population data, U-Haul’s truck-rental volume, and Atlas Van Lines’ separate customer base each produce different top-five lists — because each one counts something different.
Why “States People Are Leaving” Has Four Different Answers
Every year, a handful of moving companies and government agencies publish migration rankings, and every year the headlines contradict each other. That’s not because someone is wrong — it’s because “people are leaving” can mean at least four distinct measurements:
- Outbound share of company bookings (United Van Lines, Atlas Van Lines): what percentage of a moving company’s shipments in a state were headed out versus in. This favors small, low-volume states where a handful of extra outbound jobs can swing the percentage.
- Raw truck-rental volume (U-Haul Growth Index): net direction of more than 2.5 million one-way truck and container rentals. This favors states with the largest populations and the most total moves.
- Actual population counts (U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey): how many real people moved across state lines, independent of which company they hired or whether they hired one at all.
- Tax-return migration (IRS Statistics of Income): where filers’ addresses changed between tax years — a proxy for household migration, but published two to three years behind real time.
None of these is “the” answer. Read together, they tell a more accurate story than any single ranking — which is the point of this report.
The 2026 Ranking: United Van Lines’ Top 25 Outbound States
United Van Lines has tracked interstate migration since 1977, ranking all 48 contiguous states (plus D.C.) by the share of household shipments moving out versus in. The 2025 study, based on UniGroup network shipment data, produces this top 25 by outbound percentage:
| Rank | State | Outbound Share | Total Shipments Tracked |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | 62.33% | 3,191 |
| 2 | New York | 57.84% | 6,412 |
| 3 | California | 57.81% | 17,067 |
| 4 | North Dakota | 56.63% | 498 |
| 5 | Colorado | 54.98% | 6,633 |
| 6 | Mississippi | 54.91% | 1,038 |
| 7 | Massachusetts | 54.67% | 3,135 |
| 8 | Nebraska | 54.44% | 1,104 |
| 9 | Illinois | 54.34% | 5,480 |
| 10 | Wyoming | 53.93% | 382 |
| 11 | Connecticut | 53.53% | 1,685 |
| 12 | Maryland | 52.37% | 3,340 |
| 13 | Washington | 52.36% | 8,036 |
| 14 | Ohio | 51.09% | 4,447 |
| 15 | Pennsylvania | 51.04% | 4,273 |
| 16 | Michigan | 50.88% | 3,247 |
| 17 | New Hampshire | 50.63% | 632 |
| 18 | Kansas | 49.92% | 1,803 |
| 19 | South Dakota | 49.75% | 394 |
| 20 | Louisiana | 49.34% | 1,670 |
| 21 | Texas | 49.30% | 16,766 |
| 22 | Iowa | 48.50% | 998 |
| 23 | Maine | 48.38% | 831 |
| 24 | Georgia | 48.30% | 5,364 |
| 25 | Kentucky | 48.27% | 1,761 |
Source: United Van Lines 2025 National Movers Study, state-by-state shipment data. Vermont is excluded — United moved fewer than 250 households in and out of the state, below its reporting threshold.
Only 4 States Actually Cross the “High Outbound” Line
Here’s the nuance most headlines skip: United Van Lines only classifies a state as “high outbound” if 55% or more of its tracked moves left the state. Looking at the table above, that bar is cleared by exactly four states in 2025 — New Jersey, New York, California, and North Dakota. Everything from Colorado (54.98%) down to Kentucky (48.27%) is closer to a coin flip than a mass exodus.
That distinction matters for two states that get outsized headlines every year. For the first time in more than a decade, Illinois — at 54.34% outbound — didn’t make United’s “high outbound” list at all. And Texas (49.30% outbound) and Florida (47.81% outbound) are now officially “balanced,” not majority-inbound. Rising housing costs are starting to cool even the Sun Belt’s biggest migration magnets.
What the Census Bureau’s Actual Population Numbers Show
United Van Lines only counts its own customers. For a population-level view, the Census Bureau’s 2024 State-to-State Migration Flows (based on the 2024 American Community Survey, released January 21, 2026) tracks every documented move, regardless of who — or whether anyone — was hired to help.
By this measure, the five states with the largest net domestic migration losses for the year were:
- California: -239,575
- New York: -120,917
- Illinois: -56,235
- New Jersey: -35,554
- Massachusetts: -27,480
And the five biggest net gainers were Texas (+85,267), North Carolina (+82,288), South Carolina (+68,043), Florida (+64,017), and Tennessee (+48,476). Hawaii, notably, lost the largest share of its population to other states on a percentage basis (-0.65%), even though its raw numbers are small — a reminder that “biggest loser” depends entirely on whether you’re counting people or percentages.
Older IRS Statistics of Income migration data, drawn from tax-return address changes and lagging real time by two to three years, tells a consistent story from the most recent available filing window (2021–2022): California posted both the largest net loss and the fastest outflow of any state, losing a net resident roughly every one minute and 44 seconds during that period, with New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey rounding out the top five.
U-Haul’s Truck-Rental Data Tells a Similar — But Not Identical — Story
The U-Haul Growth Index, based on more than 2.5 million one-way truck and trailer rentals across the U.S. and Canada, ranks states by net rental direction rather than percentage share. For 2025, the states losing the most net one-way rentals were California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts — with California finishing dead last for the sixth consecutive year.
The most volatile mover in the 2025 index wasn’t a coastal state at all: Ohio fell from 14th place in 2024 all the way to 43rd in 2025, one of the largest single-year swings in the index’s history. On the inbound side, U-Haul’s top growth states were Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and South Carolina — largely mirroring the Census Bureau’s list of population gainers.
Why Louisiana, Not California, Tops Atlas Van Lines’ List
A third moving carrier, Atlas Van Lines, publishes its own annual migration study based on customer bookings between November and October each year. Its 2025 report puts Louisiana at the top of the outbound list for the second year running, followed by West Virginia, Wyoming, Delaware, Nebraska, Arizona, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and South Carolina. At the city level, Sioux Falls, South Dakota recorded more outbound moves than anywhere else in Atlas’s network.
The states missing from that list are as telling as the ones on it: California, Illinois, and New York — perennial fixtures on other outbound rankings — shifted into Atlas’s “balanced” category in 2025. Three separate moving-company studies now agree on the same underlying shift, even though they disagree on which single state leads the pack.
The Real Reason More States Are Turning “Balanced”: The Mortgage Lock-In Effect
There’s a mechanical explanation for why California, Illinois, and New York keep sliding toward “balanced” across multiple 2025 studies even though Census and IRS data still show them near the top for absolute population loss: millions of homeowners are financially unable to move.
Federal Reserve research estimates that the mortgage rate “lock-in effect” — homeowners holding 2020–2021-era rates below 3% — accounts for roughly 44% of the decline in homeowner mobility since rates spiked in 2022. A separate National Bureau of Economic Research study found that higher rates cut mobility among mortgage holders by about 16% in 2022 and 2023. The math is straightforward: a homeowner who sells today to buy a similarly priced home elsewhere would typically see their monthly housing payment jump by close to $1,000, simply from trading a locked-in low rate for a current one.
That’s why so many 2025 migration studies show fewer households moving overall, even from states with the highest cost of living. People who want to leave New York, Illinois, or California in growing numbers are, in many cases, staying put because they can’t afford to give up the mortgage they already have — a “balanced” ranking can mask genuine desire to relocate that never turns into an actual move.
Why People Are Actually Leaving: Cost of Living, Taxes, and Housing
Across every data source, the stated and inferred reasons for leaving cluster around the same handful of factors. United Van Lines’ own survey of movers found family (25.5%) and retirement (25.2%) as the top cited reasons for New Jersey’s outbound moves specifically — but the underlying financial pressure is consistent nationally:
- Housing costs: California’s median home price sits around $809,227 — nearly double the national median — while New Jersey combines high home prices with some of the highest property tax rates in the country.
- Income tax: California carries the nation’s highest state income tax rate at 12.3%, a frequently cited factor in relocation decisions among higher earners.
- Everyday cost of living: New York residents cite high housing costs and elevated day-to-day expenses, combined with the pull of lower-cost neighboring states.
- Jobs and retirement: Beyond cost, retirees and remote-capable workers continue to trade high-tax, high-cost states for the Sun Belt corridor — Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and South Carolina consistently appear as top destinations across every single data source in this report.
One quick way to use this data: if you’re comparing your own state’s ranking across different “top states leaving” articles online, check which methodology they’re citing before assuming the number applies to you — a state can be simultaneously “high outbound” by one measure and “balanced” by another, and both can be accurate.
Frequently Asked Questions About States People Are Leaving in 2026
Q: What is the #1 state people are leaving in 2026?
A: It depends on the data source. United Van Lines’ 2025 study ranks New Jersey #1 by outbound share (62.33%) for the eighth consecutive year. The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 migration data ranks California #1 by absolute population loss (-239,575). Atlas Van Lines’ 2025 study ranks Louisiana #1 among its own customer base.
Q: Why do different studies rank different states as the top state people are leaving?
A: Each source measures something different — United Van Lines and Atlas Van Lines track the percentage of their own company’s bookings that are outbound, U-Haul tracks net direction of truck rentals, and the Census Bureau and IRS track actual population or tax-filer address changes. None is wrong; they answer different questions.
Q: Is California still the state with the most people leaving?
A: By population count, yes — Census Bureau data shows California had the largest net domestic migration loss of any state in 2024 (-239,575) and U-Haul’s rental data ranks it last for the sixth year running. By outbound percentage of moves, however, New Jersey and New York rank higher than California in United Van Lines’ 2025 study.
Q: Are Texas and Florida still gaining residents in 2026?
A: Yes, but growth has slowed. Census data still shows Texas and Florida among the top five net population gainers nationally. However, United Van Lines’ 2025 study now classifies both as “balanced” rather than high-inbound, as rising housing costs cool demand compared to prior years.
Q: Why is overall interstate moving down even in high-cost states?
A: The mortgage rate “lock-in effect” is a major factor. Federal Reserve research attributes about 44% of the post-2022 decline in homeowner mobility to homeowners holding low, pre-2022 mortgage rates who would face significantly higher payments if they sold and bought again at current rates.
Q: Where is IRS migration data available, and how current is it?
A: The IRS publishes Statistics of Income (SOI) migration data based on tax-return address changes, but it runs two to three years behind real time — the most recently available detailed dataset covers the 2021–2022 filing year, not 2025 or 2026.
Whichever state you’re tracking, the honest answer to “who’s leaving the most” is: check the methodology first. The 2026 picture is genuinely more nuanced than any single ranking suggests — fewer Americans are moving overall, the reasons skew financial rather than purely lifestyle-driven, and the states losing residents fastest by population aren’t always the same ones topping the percentage-based outbound charts.
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