Across the State Line to Work: The 5.4 Million Americans Who Commute to Another State (2024)
They live in one state and work in another, a daily border crossing the state-by-state numbers never show. From Census microdata, with the biggest flows and the time it costs.
Key findings
- In 2024 1-Year, about 5,384,123 employed Americans (±44,588) worked in a different state from the one they lived in, roughly 3.26% of all workers with a fixed workplace in a U.S. state.
- Measured as a share of a state's own workers, the biggest out-of-state commutes come from states that border a larger job center: District of Columbia (20.28%), Rhode Island (15.79%), Maryland (13.99%) lead.
- The single largest flow is New Jersey to New York, about 451,576 workers a day.
- Crossing a state line costs time: cross-state commuters have a median one-way trip of 35 minutes, versus 20 minutes for people who work in their home state.
- This is a commute the usual state-level statistics hide, because they count where a worker lives, not the border the worker crosses to earn.
This counts employed people whose place of work is in a different U.S. state than where they live, using the 2024 1-Year American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample. The universe is workers with a fixed place of work in one of the 50 states or the District of Columbia (the Census place-of-work recode POWSP), compared with their state of residence (STATE). People who worked from home are coded to their residence state and count as within-state. Counts are weighted with the person weight (PWGTP) and carry 90% margins of error from the 80 replicate weights. State-to-state flows and median travel times are point estimates of the weighted distribution. A state's share is out-of-state commuters divided by that state's workers with a U.S. workplace.
Cross-state commuters, 2024 1-Year
The biggest interstate commutes
| Workers | Workers who commute across this state line |
|---|---|
| NJ to NY | 451,576 |
| MD to DC | 258,265 |
| VA to DC | 170,429 |
| MD to VA | 131,791 |
| NJ to PA | 126,704 |
| PA to NJ | 110,441 |
| MO to KS | 104,348 |
| NY to NJ | 95,739 |
| SC to NC | 91,603 |
| KS to MO | 84,544 |
| CT to NY | 84,030 |
| IL to MO | 77,024 |
Labels are postal abbreviations: the first is the state of residence, the second the state of work.
Largest state-to-state flows
| Residence to workplace | Workers | Sample |
|---|---|---|
| New Jersey to New York | 451,576 | 4,261 |
| Maryland to District of Columbia | 258,265 | 2,422 |
| Virginia to District of Columbia | 170,429 | 1,815 |
| Maryland to Virginia | 131,791 | 1,188 |
| New Jersey to Pennsylvania | 126,704 | 1,323 |
| Pennsylvania to New Jersey | 110,441 | 776 |
| Missouri to Kansas | 104,348 | 890 |
| New York to New Jersey | 95,739 | 863 |
| South Carolina to North Carolina | 91,603 | 845 |
| Kansas to Missouri | 84,544 | 679 |
| Connecticut to New York | 84,030 | 885 |
| Illinois to Missouri | 77,024 | 734 |
Flows are point estimates. Sample is the unweighted number of such commuters surveyed.
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.
American Community Survey (ACS) Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS)
- Publisher:
- U.S. Census Bureau
- Vintage:
- 2024 1-Year
- Access:
- BigQuery
- Cadence:
- annual
De-identified individual person and housing records from the American Community Survey, the Census Bureau’s largest household survey. The 1-year PUMS file lets analysts compute custom estimates for demographic, social, economic, and housing characteristics down to the Public Use Microdata Area (PUMA) level.
The ACS is a continuous survey that samples households throughout the year. The 2024 1-year PUMS file is a sample of de-identified person and housing records collected over calendar year 2024, representing the resident population of the United States.
Every record carries a sampling weight (PWGTP for persons, WGTP for housing units) that expands the sample to population and housing-unit totals. All statistics on this page are weighted estimates; any unweighted record counts are shown only to convey sample size.
Margins of error are computed from the 80 replicate weights supplied with the PUMS file using the Census Bureau’s successive-difference replication method, and are reported at the 90% confidence level unless stated otherwise.
Sub-state estimates use Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs), statistical areas of at least 100,000 residents. The 2020-vintage PUMA boundaries apply to 2022 and later ACS data.
- PUMS is a sample of roughly one percent of the population, so every estimate carries sampling error; small subgroups and small geographies have wider margins of error.
- Figures are survey estimates, not a complete count, and can differ from administrative records or the full ACS tabulations.
- Dollar amounts reflect the survey year and are not adjusted for inflation across vintages unless explicitly noted.
- PUMA boundaries are redrawn after each decennial census, which breaks strict geographic comparability across the boundary change.
How these figures were produced
- Estimate type:
- Weighted survey estimate (person level)
- Weighting:
- PWGTP (person weight)
- Confidence level:
- 90%
- Error estimation:
- Successive-difference replication over 80 replicate weights
Suggested citation
U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 1-Year American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS). Analysis by Matt George, itsmattgeorge.com. Retrieved 2026-10-15.