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Two reports say Mass. is one of the most-moved-from states, but that’s not the full story
International immigration has buoyed Massachusetts' population against many residents who are trading in the Bay State for cheaper, less dense areas.
Data from U-Haul and United Van Lines shows Massachusetts residents moving in droves in 2024, leaving the state for less dense, more affordable regions like the Southeast. The U-Haul Growth Index rankings put Massachusetts at 49 out of 50 for growing states, second only to California, and a similar report from United Van Lines ranked Massachusetts as the fifth most outbound state.
And yet, the Bay State’s population actually rose by 69,503 last year, thanks in large part to international immigration. That’s the largest year-to-year population increase since 1964, according to the UMass Donahue Institute’s Massachusetts Population Estimates Program, making Massachusetts the second fastest-growing state in the Northeast and the fastest-growing state in New England.
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“These reports don’t directly contradict each other, but they emphasize different parts of the story,” said Luc Schuster, Boston Indicators’ executive director. “When you add in immigration, the story changes.”
Net migration and vital trends
Massachusetts residents moving to other states isn’t a new development. It’s been happening pretty consistently for “at least the past decade,” said Riordan Frost, a senior research analyst at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS), an organization that seeks to improve equitable access to affordable homes.
Since 2015, when Massachusetts was at No. 36 on the U-Haul Growth Index, its ranking has steadily dropped: to 42 in 2016, to 46 in 2017, to 47 in 2019, and to 49 in 2023, where it hung on for a second year in 2024.
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This is part of a nationwide trend that sees people moving out of high-cost states like New York, California, and Illinois, along with Massachusetts, which Schuster attributed to “cost of living and rising housing costs.”
Since 2015 — the decade in which Massachusetts’ U-Haul ranking has dropped from 36 to 49 — those prices have increased.
“That decade coincides directly with the biggest spikes in housing costs,” said Schuster, whose research center works to advance a flourishing Greater Boston for all residents.
Frost suggested residents move out of state more often for job-related reasons than for housing-related reasons, pointing to Current Population Survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau that shows slightly more than half of the 296,886 Massachusetts residents who moved out of state between 2021 and 2024 attributed the decision to a job.
| Reason | Number | Percentage |
| Job | 153,023 | 51.5% |
| Family | 44,810 | 15.1% |
| Housing | 35,080 | 11.8% |
| Other | 63,973 | 21.5% |
Those numbers were similar prior to the pandemic, too. Of the 282,931 Massachusetts residents who moved away between 2016 and 2019, just over half attributed the move to a job, though a smaller share said it was for housing before the pandemic than after.
| Reason | Number | Percentage |
| Job | 149,223 | 52.7% |
| Family | 61,180 | 21.6% |
| Housing | 23,414 | 8.3% |
| Other | 63,973 | 17.4% |
“That doesn’t mean that housing costs aren’t driving people out, just that movers are typically reporting job-related reasons as their primary reason for leaving the state,” Frost said.
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In addition to outmigration, rates of natural population change — the difference between the number of births and the number of deaths in a population — have plummeted in Massachusetts since 2011. That year, the state’s population grew by 19,191 from natural increases alone. In 2024, the population grew by only 6,718, which is actually up from the 2021 low of 4,783.
| Year | Births | Deaths | Difference |
| 2011 | 73,187 | 53,996 | +19,191 |
| 2012 | 72,228 | 52,396 | +19,832 |
| 2013 | 72,160 | 54,782 | +17,378 |
| 2014 | 71,952 | 54,729 | +17,223 |
| 2015 | 71,930 | 57,488 | +14,442 |
| 2016 | 71,345 | 55,985 | +15,360 |
| 2017 | 70,774 | 58,151 | +12,623 |
| 2018 | 70,453 | 58,914 | +11,539 |
| 2019 | 68,720 | 59,297 | +9,423 |
| 2020 | 68,502 | 63,072 | +5,430 |
| 2021 | 66,440 | 61,657 | +4,783 |
| 2022 | 68,959 | 63,764 | +5,195 |
| 2023 | 68,144 | 61,574 | +6,570 |
| 2024 | 67,851 | 61,133 | +6,718 |
Increased immigration responsible for population growth
Frost called immigration the “key player” in Massachusetts’ ability to grow its population despite outmigration and natural change, and the report from the Donahue Institute referred to immigration as the “largest driver by far” of the estimated population increase.
Net international migration to Massachusetts has shot up from 34,360 in 2011 to 90,217 in 2024, which more than offsets domestic migration. In 2022, for instance, the year of the highest net domestic migration, 54,843 people left Massachusetts for other states and 72,892 international immigrants arrived.
| Year | Net Domestic Migration | Net International Immigration | Difference |
| 2011 | -5,601 | 34,360 | +28,759 |
| 2012 | -7,714 | 38,843 | +31,129 |
| 2013 | -3,074 | 37,447 | +34,373 |
| 2014 | -10,847 | 44,485 | +33,638 |
| 2015 | -22,139 | 40,816 | +18,677 |
| 2016 | -30,252 | 44,834 | +14,582 |
| 2017 | -24,724 | 48,583 | +23,859 |
| 2018 | -27,035 | 37,740 | +10,705 |
| 2019 | -30,338 | 30,022 | -316 |
| 2020 | -32,164 | 25,247 | -6,917 |
| 2021 | -14,713 | 16,475 | +1,762 |
| 2022 | -54,843 | 72,892 | +18,049 |
| 2023 | -36,572 | 74,610 | +38,038 |
| 2024 | -27,480 | 90,217 | +62,737 |
“There are claims in the political conversation that immigrants are the reason we’re in this affordability crisis, and the data just doesn’t support that,” said Frost, who authored a blog post this fall that examined the impact of the recent immigrant surge on housing costs.
He attributes the high cost of Massachusetts housing in part to millennials reaching prime home-buying age without the supply to keep up with the demand.
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“That ran up against the constrained supply we’ve had since the Great Recession, and that’s the real driver behind housing costs increasing as much as they did,” Frost said. “It was not because of immigrants that housing prices were soaring so much. That’s true nationally.”
Schuster agreed that we need to build more housing, and Frost said immigrants are actually essential to that mission, not detrimental. Nearly one-third — 32% — of Massachusetts’ construction trade workers are foreign-born, according to JCHS data.
“If there were fewer immigrants, or deportations as has been promised, that could really have a supply shock on the housing and construction industry, which could worsen some of these affordability issues,” Frost said.
‘Best case scenario for Massachusetts’
Both Frost and Schuster said immigration is good news as it relates to raising Massachusetts’ population, especially if the natural population change continues to decrease.
“We continue to lose residents to other parts of the country year after year,” Schuster said. “Immigration has been saving our butts.”
Federal Census data looks at both the difference between immigration and outmigration and the difference between natural change to track population numbers. Starting with the existing population base, it adds births, subtracts deaths, and adds net international and domestic migration. It shows Massachusetts’ total population growing from 6,994,598 in 2020 to 7,136,171 in 2024, with the greatest year-to-year increase in the last four years between 2023 and 2024.
| Year | Total Population (as of July 1) | Population Change from Previous Year |
| 2020 | 6,994,598 | |
| 2021 | 7,000,474 | +5,876 |
| 2022 | 7,022,468 | +21,994 |
| 2023 | 7,066,568 | +44,100 |
| 2024 | 7,136,171 | +69,603 |
The best-case scenario, Schuster said, would be continuing to welcome new immigrants while also retaining longtime residents, rather than losing them to other parts of the country.
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How to do that? He would put housing “at the top of the list,” especially if Massachusetts wants to retain the many young people who graduate from its universities each year.
“We need more housing that people can afford, if we want them to stay here,” he said.
Though domestic migration has rebounded since its peak net outflow of 54,843 in 2022, it’s still not where Schuster or Frost would like it to be.
Schuster described what he calls “the story of Massachusetts” as a careful balance based on the number of Massachusetts residents moving to other parts of the country being roughly offset by the number of international immigrants moving in.
“We’re staying afloat thanks to immigration, but if we want to continue to grow, we need to attract more residents from other states and stave off further losses of Massachusetts residents to other states,” Schuster said.
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