Where the Money Moved: Net Income Migration by State (2022 to 2023)
Migration moves income, not just people. The states that gained and lost the most adjusted gross income to interstate moves.
Key findings
- Migration does not just move people, it moves money. In the 2022 to 2023 filing years, Florida gained the most: a net $20.6B in adjusted gross income from households moving in from other states, on net 55,349 households.
- California lost the most, a net -$11.9B in income to other states.
- The biggest winners after Florida were Texas ($5.5B) and South Carolina ($4.1B); the biggest losers after California were New York (-$9.9B) and Illinois (-$6.0B).
- This is net flow: it nets the income arriving against the income leaving, so it shows where the country's income is actually relocating.
Every year the IRS can see who moved, because people file from a new address. This takes the 2022 to 2023 state-to-state migration file and nets the adjusted gross income (AGI) arriving in each state against the AGI leaving it. The result is a map of where America's income is relocating, not just its population. A handful of Sun Belt states pull in billions in net income while several large, high-cost states hand it off. These are exact tabulations of tax returns, not survey estimates; AGI reflects income as reported, in dollars.
Net income migration, 2022 to 2023
Biggest winners and losers of income
| Net adjusted gross income gained or lost ($ billions) | Net AGI migration ($ billions) |
|---|---|
| Florida | $20.65 |
| Texas | $5.54 |
| South Carolina | $4.13 |
| North Carolina | $3.91 |
| Arizona | $2.76 |
| Tennessee | $2.75 |
| Nevada | $1.51 |
| Idaho | $0.99 |
| New Hampshire | $0.76 |
| Georgia | $0.75 |
| Michigan | $-0.96 |
| Minnesota | $-1.47 |
| Ohio | $-1.63 |
| Maryland | $-1.82 |
| Pennsylvania | $-2.18 |
| New Jersey | $-2.56 |
| Massachusetts | $-4.02 |
| Illinois | $-5.99 |
| New York | $-9.89 |
| California | $-11.92 |
All states
| State | Net AGI migration | Net households |
|---|---|---|
| Florida | $20.6B | +55,349 |
| Texas | $5.5B | +56,473 |
| South Carolina | $4.1B | +29,214 |
| North Carolina | $3.9B | +39,118 |
| Arizona | $2.8B | +17,316 |
| Tennessee | $2.8B | +24,104 |
| Nevada | $1.5B | +8,977 |
| Idaho | $1.0B | +5,811 |
| New Hampshire | $0.8B | +2,168 |
| Georgia | $0.7B | +14,671 |
| Colorado | $0.7B | +11,341 |
| Delaware | $0.6B | +4,054 |
| Alabama | $0.5B | +6,202 |
| Maine | $0.5B | +3,671 |
| Montana | $0.5B | +3,096 |
| Utah | $0.5B | +3,164 |
| Arkansas | $0.4B | +5,269 |
| Oklahoma | $0.3B | +5,414 |
| South Dakota | $0.3B | +1,539 |
| Wyoming | $0.1B | +187 |
| Vermont | $0.1B | -299 |
| Rhode Island | $0.0B | -129 |
| West Virginia | $0.0B | +879 |
| Hawaii | -$0.0B | -2,597 |
| Mississippi | -$0.1B | -3,125 |
| Wisconsin | -$0.1B | +516 |
| New Mexico | -$0.1B | -213 |
| Kentucky | -$0.1B | +2,158 |
| North Dakota | -$0.1B | -46 |
| Alaska | -$0.2B | -1,389 |
| Missouri | -$0.2B | +2,794 |
| Nebraska | -$0.2B | -1,484 |
| Washington | -$0.3B | +9,839 |
| Iowa | -$0.3B | -2,414 |
| Indiana | -$0.3B | -1,268 |
| Kansas | -$0.4B | -3,272 |
| Connecticut | -$0.5B | -5,674 |
| Oregon | -$0.5B | -45 |
| Louisiana | -$0.8B | -10,129 |
| District of Columbia | -$0.8B | +1,673 |
| Virginia | -$0.9B | +421 |
| Michigan | -$1.0B | -8,770 |
| Minnesota | -$1.5B | -5,106 |
| Ohio | -$1.6B | -7,994 |
| Maryland | -$1.8B | -13,628 |
| Pennsylvania | -$2.2B | -12,095 |
| New Jersey | -$2.6B | -19,370 |
| Massachusetts | -$4.0B | -15,378 |
| Illinois | -$6.0B | -28,609 |
| New York | -$9.9B | -71,987 |
| California | -$11.9B | -100,397 |
Net flow nets inbound against outbound inter-state migration. AGI is adjusted gross income as reported on returns. 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.