The U.S. Census Bureau announced on Mar. 26 that population growth slowed in most of the nation’s 3,143 counties and the District of Columbia between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025, according to its Vintage 2025 population estimates.
This slowdown in growth is significant because it reflects changing migration patterns and demographic trends across the country. Many large counties are experiencing less international migration while domestic migration continues to shift populations toward smaller counties.
Of the counties that grew from 2023 to 2024, nearly eight out of ten saw their growth slow or reverse by mid-2025. Metro areas were also affected: out of all metropolitan statistical areas in the United States, over three hundred had slower growth compared to the previous year. The steepest declines were observed along the U.S.-Mexico border in Laredo, Texas; Yuma, Arizona; and El Centro, California.
The main reason for these changes was a nationwide drop in net international migration (NIM). Nine out of ten U.S. counties experienced lower NIM levels during this period than they did a year earlier. The largest counties—often hubs for international arrivals—were especially impacted due to fewer gains from abroad combined with continued losses from people moving elsewhere domestically.
George M. Hayward, a Census Bureau demographer, said: “The nation’s largest counties like those in the New York metro area are often international migration hubs, gaining large numbers of international migrants and losing people that move to other parts of the country via domestic migration… With fewer gains from international migration, these types of counties saw their population growth diminish or even turn into loss.”
Despite this overall trend toward slower growth or decline among larger areas, many fast-growing counties remained concentrated along the southeastern coast—including Florida and neighboring states—and on outer edges of major metro regions such as those found in Texas. Among sizable southern counties (populations above twenty thousand), nine out of ten fastest-growing were located in this region.
In terms of broader implications for communities nationwide: domestic migration continues to redistribute Americans away from major urban centers toward less populous places—a trend visible through net losses among America’s fifty largest counties but net gains among medium-sized and small ones.
Looking ahead, additional data releases scheduled for June will provide more detail about demographic changes by age group and race/ethnicity at national and local levels.
