Texas supplied the most new residents of any U.S. state for nine other states, despite having the biggest population growth this decade, according to figures released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Texas was the top source of new residents for Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Oklahoma, according to the 2024 state-to-state migration flows, which track where someone lived in the previous year and where they currently live.
With 31 million residents, Texas ranks second in population among U.S. states. Between 2020 and 2024, Texas gained 2.1 million people.
“The obvious and primary answer is size,” said Dudley Poston, professor emeritus of sociology at Texas A&M University. “There’s got to be more people leaving Texas than leaving other states because of the population size of Texas.”
Other large producers of residents who moved to other states included the nation’s other most populous states: California, Florida and New York.
