U-Haul truck – Courtesy: Shutterstock – Image by Around the World Photos
New data from equipment rental giant U-Haul shows that 2023 was another year where thousands of people moved across state lines.
U-Haul publishes its Growth Index report for the preceding year every year. The business compares the net gain of U-Haul trucks leaving a state or city during a given calendar year to the net gain of trucks arriving in that state or city. Therefore, if you used a rental to relocate from California to Texas, for instance, it would be considered a gain for Texas and a loss for California.
More than 2 million U-Haul truck transactions occur within the United States and Canada annually, according to U-Haul.
U-Haul reports that in 2023, movers’ favored locations were in the southwest and southeast of the country. For the second year in a row and the sixth time in the last eight years, Texas was determined to be the most popular state for migration on U-Haul.
According to U.S. Census data released last year, Texas has had the greatest population growth since 2022 out of all states, according to KXAN on Nexstar. In 2022, more than 668,000 persons relocated to Texas from other states; however, this was balanced by around 494,000 people departing the state, leaving Texas with a net gain of almost 174,000 new citizens.
According to U-Haul, the growth of the company was fueled by the fact that over 50 percent of all one-way traffic into and out of Texas was made up of equipment rentals.
These states saw the largest influx of movers in 2023, according to U-Haul.
- Texas
- Florida
- North Carolina
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
California came in last on the list, exactly where it had been in 2022. The state saw the most net loss of one-way movers, according to U-Haul. Similar to Texas, U-Haul appears to have ranked the Golden State by Census data. Approximately 475,000 Texans and Californians who wanted to relocate most frequently chose to move to another state; in contrast, over 817,000 persons departed California in 2022.
According to Census data, some of the states near the bottom of the list, like Illinois, also saw population declines.
The company’s list shows that these five states had the least number of one-way rentals:
- California
- Massachusetts
- Illinois
- New Jersey
- Michigan
The biggest increases in one-way rentals into Arkansas, Wyoming, Vermont, Washington, Delaware, and South Dakota were observed overall with U-Haul. The states with the biggest decreases were Indiana, Oregon, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Missouri.
“While one-way transactions in 2023 remained below the record-breaking levels we witnessed immediately following the pandemic, we continued to see many of the same geographical trends from U-Haul customers moving between states,” said John “J.T.” Taylor, U-Haul International president, via a news release.
The company notes that its report doesn’t “correlate directly to population or economic growth.” It can, however, offer insights into where movers are moving.
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Melissa’s career in writing started more than 20 years ago. Today, she lives in South Florida with her husband and two boys.
