This Is the State the Most People Are Moving To

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 11, 8:00AM EST

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

This Is the State the Most People Are Moving To — © monkeybusinessimages / iStock via Getty Images

Americans have gone through a period of mass migration over the past year and a half. These migrations have a pattern, and some states have become more popular than others, based on the recently released United Van Lines’ 45th Annual National Movers Study. The state the most people are moving to is Vermont. (These are 25 cities Americans are flocking to.)

One of the reasons for the recent mass migration is the multi-decade low mortgage rates, although that is about to change. Many people also grew tired of living in huge metropolitan areas, particularly on the East and West coasts, which are characterized by expensive real estate and otherwise high costs of living. Many inland cities have not only lower real estate prices, but also better quality of life.

The other trigger for this migration is that people can work from home because companies have shuttered their offices in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some companies have chosen to make these arrangements permanent. The upshot is that people have become free to move around the country.

United Van Lines’ research is based on households that the company moved in 2021. The study looked at how many of these moves were inbound and outbound by state. The states most people are moving to is where inbound moves outnumbered outbound moves by the largest margin.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed the study to find the 20 states with the highest percentage of inbound moves in 2021. (This is the state where retirees are most likely to move.)

The study confirms the migration trends some other research has shown. Michael A. Stoll, economist and professor in the Department of Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, remarked on the figure, “This new data from United Van Lines is indicative of COVID-19’s impact on domestic migration patterns, with 2021 bringing an acceleration of moves to smaller, midsized towns and cities.”

Notably, of the top 10 states with the most inbound versus outbound moves, six are among the least densely-populated states and include Vermont, South Dakota, West Virginia, Alabama, Oregon, and Idaho.

Click here to see the state most people are moving to

20. Arkansas
> Pct. of moves inbound: 53%
> Total moves to or from Arkansas: 1,537

[in-text-ad]

19. Georgia
> Pct. of moves inbound: 54%
> Total moves to or from Georgia: 8,861

[recirclink id=1022002]

18. New Hampshire
> Pct. of moves inbound: 54%
> Total moves to or from New Hampshire: 1,047

17. Arizona
> Pct. of moves inbound: 54%
> Total moves to or from Arizona: 7,540

[in-text-ad-2]

16. Texas
> Pct. of moves inbound: 54%
> Total moves to or from Texas: 22,715

15. Utah
> Pct. of moves inbound: 55%
> Total moves to or from Utah: 2,516

[in-text-ad]

14. New Mexico
> Pct. of moves inbound: 56%
> Total moves to or from New Mexico: 2,276

[recirclink id=1018379]

Kittery, Maine (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Doug Kerr

13. Maine
> Pct. of moves inbound: 58%
> Total moves to or from Maine: 1,376

12. North Carolina
> Pct. of moves inbound: 59%
> Total moves to or from North Carolina: 10,318

[in-text-ad-2]

11. Delaware
> Pct. of moves inbound: 59%
> Total moves to or from Delaware: 718

10. Rhode Island
> Pct. of moves inbound: 59%
> Total moves to or from Rhode Island: 892

[in-text-ad]

9. Idaho
> Pct. of moves inbound: 60%
> Total moves to or from Idaho: 1,623

[recirclink id=1021882]

8. Oregon
> Pct. of moves inbound: 61%
> Total moves to or from Oregon: 3,370

7. Tennessee
> Pct. of moves inbound: 62%
> Total moves to or from Tennessee: 6,004

[in-text-ad-2]

6. Alabama
> Pct. of moves inbound: 62%
> Total moves to or from Alabama: 2,726

5. Florida
> Pct. of moves inbound: 62%
> Total moves to or from Florida: 21,179

[in-text-ad]

4. West Virginia
> Pct. of moves inbound: 63%
> Total moves to or from West Virginia: 451

[recirclink id=942076]

3. South Carolina
> Pct. of moves inbound: 63%
> Total moves to or from South Carolina: 5,508

2. South Dakota
> Pct. of moves inbound: 69%
> Total moves to or from South Dakota: 446

[in-text-ad-2]

1. Vermont
> Pct. of moves inbound: 74%
> Total moves to or from Vermont: 413

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.