America's Biggest State-to-State Moves (2022 to 2023)
The thickest arrows on the migration map: the single largest origin-to-destination moves, and the income they carried.
Key findings
- The single largest interstate move in the country was California to Texas: 44,417 households (82,481 people) carrying $4.8B in adjusted gross income in the 2022 to 2023 filing years.
- Next were New York to New Jersey (43,699 households) and New York to Florida (43,187 households).
- The heaviest flows run out of the largest, highest-cost states and into the Sun Belt, which is why those destinations keep showing up on the receiving end.
- Each flow is one direction only, so a large move one way does not cancel the move back; the net picture is a separate story.
Where are Americans actually moving, in bulk? This ranks every directed state-to-state flow in the 2022 to 2023 IRS migration file by the number of households that made the move, and shows how much income each pipeline carried. These are the thickest arrows on the migration map: specific origin-to-destination routes, not net totals. A move counts once in the direction it happened. These are exact tabulations of tax returns; AGI is reported income, in dollars.
Largest state-to-state flows
| Households (returns) | Households that moved |
|---|---|
| California to Texas | 44,417 |
| New York to New Jersey | 43,699 |
| New York to Florida | 43,187 |
| California to Arizona | 28,402 |
| Florida to Georgia | 28,263 |
| New Jersey to New York | 26,793 |
| California to Nevada | 26,210 |
| Texas to California | 24,970 |
| California to Washington | 24,625 |
| Florida to Texas | 24,196 |
| Georgia to Florida | 23,475 |
| Florida to New York | 22,011 |
| New York to Pennsylvania | 20,643 |
| California to New York | 20,595 |
| Florida to North Carolina | 20,553 |
Top 25 flows
| Move | Households | People | AGI carried |
|---|---|---|---|
| California to Texas | 44,417 | 82,481 | $4.8B |
| New York to New Jersey | 43,699 | 73,471 | $5.1B |
| New York to Florida | 43,187 | 71,476 | $5.8B |
| California to Arizona | 28,402 | 47,885 | $2.5B |
| Florida to Georgia | 28,263 | 50,483 | $1.8B |
| New Jersey to New York | 26,793 | 38,722 | $3.0B |
| California to Nevada | 26,210 | 43,801 | $2.7B |
| Texas to California | 24,970 | 41,232 | $2.4B |
| California to Washington | 24,625 | 38,093 | $2.7B |
| Florida to Texas | 24,196 | 41,655 | $1.7B |
| Georgia to Florida | 23,475 | 40,689 | $2.1B |
| Florida to New York | 22,011 | 32,133 | $2.0B |
| New York to Pennsylvania | 20,643 | 35,081 | $1.5B |
| California to New York | 20,595 | 25,783 | $2.8B |
| Florida to North Carolina | 20,553 | 34,859 | $1.6B |
| California to Florida | 20,241 | 34,248 | $2.6B |
| New Jersey to Florida | 20,113 | 34,761 | $3.0B |
| Texas to Florida | 20,050 | 35,016 | $1.8B |
| New Jersey to Pennsylvania | 18,767 | 29,887 | $1.6B |
| New York to California | 18,440 | 24,798 | $2.8B |
| North Carolina to South Carolina | 18,026 | 32,282 | $1.5B |
| Washington to California | 17,871 | 27,750 | $2.1B |
| California to Oregon | 16,765 | 25,392 | $1.5B |
| Pennsylvania to Florida | 16,395 | 27,392 | $2.0B |
| Arizona to California | 16,283 | 26,082 | $1.2B |
Directed flows (origin to destination). Households are returns; people are exemptions. Exact tabulation; no sampling margins of error.
Data Sources & Methodology
The figures on this page are computed directly from the source data below. Narrative text accompanies the figures but never generates them.
IRS Statistics of Income (SOI): Migration and ZIP Code Data
- Vintage:
- 2022 to 2023
- Access:
- BigQuery
- Cadence:
- annual
Tabulations built from individual income tax returns. The migration files count how many returns (roughly households), how many individuals, and how much adjusted gross income moved between every pair of U.S. counties and states from one year to the next. The ZIP Code file reports returns, income, and tax items by ZIP code and income bracket. It is a near-census of tax filers, enabling analysis of where people and their incomes move and how income is distributed geographically.
The IRS Statistics of Income division tabulates these files from individual income tax returns (Form 1040). Migration is inferred from the change in the mailing address between a filer’s return in one year and the next; the ZIP Code file aggregates return and income items by ZIP and by adjusted-gross-income bracket.
These are administrative tabulations covering essentially all tax returns filed, not a probability sample. Statistics are exact counts and totals; there are no sampling weights and no sampling margins of error.
To protect taxpayer privacy, the IRS suppresses or combines small cells (for example county flows below a threshold), and dollar amounts are reported in thousands. Aggregate rows for totals, non-migrants, and foreign flows appear alongside the detailed county and state records.
Migration records carry origin and destination state and county FIPS codes; the ZIP file carries state and ZIP code. Across the files, n1 approximates households (returns), n2 approximates population (individuals), and AGI is in thousands of dollars.
- Only tax filers are covered, so people who do not file (disproportionately the very low income and some elderly) are missing.
- Migration is based on year-to-year address changes on returns and misses moves that are not reflected in filing, as well as late or amended returns.
- Small county-to-county flows are suppressed for privacy, so detailed origin-destination pairs are incomplete at the low end.
- Dollar amounts are in thousands and reflect adjusted gross income as reported, not wealth or spending; the data lags roughly two years.
How these figures were produced
- Estimate type:
- Administrative tabulation (near-census of tax filers)
- Weighting:
- None (not a weighted sample)
Suggested citation
Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income, 2022 to 2023 (Migration Data / ZIP Code Data). Analysis by Matt George, itsmattgeorge.com. Retrieved 2026-10-23.