Population growth in the United States slowed considerably between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025, with an increase of only 1.8 million people, or 0.5%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 population estimates released today.
This marks the slowest annual growth since the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, when growth was at a historic low of 0.2%. The current slowdown follows a notable rise in population growth in 2024, when the country added 3.2 million people for a growth rate of 1.0%, which was the fastest since 2006.
Christine Hartley, assistant division chief for Estimates and Projections at the Census Bureau, said: “The slowdown in U.S. population growth is largely due to a historic decline in net international migration, which dropped from 2.7 million to 1.3 million in the period from July 2024 through June 2025. With births and deaths remaining relatively stable compared to the prior year, the sharp decline in net international migration is the main reason for the slower growth rate we see today.”
All four census regions and nearly every state experienced slower population growth or accelerated declines during this period, except Montana and West Virginia.
The Midwest region stood out as all its states saw population gains from July 2024 to July 2025. The Midwest had also experienced a shift from previous declines: after losses in earlier years, it posted solid increases of over a quarter-million residents each year since 2023. This improvement is partly attributed to modest increases in natural change (births minus deaths).
Marc Perry, senior demographer at the Census Bureau, noted: “From July 2024 through June 2025, the Midwest also saw positive net domestic migration for the first time this decade. And while the net domestic migration was a relatively modest 16,000, this is still a notable turnaround from the substantial domestic migration losses in 2021 and 2022 of -175,000 or greater.”
Ohio and Michigan are examples of this trend; both states moved from significant net domestic outflows in recent years to gains in net domestic migration by mid-2025.
South Carolina led all states with a population increase of about 80,000 people (1.5%), primarily due to higher net domestic migration though this was slightly less than its previous year’s percentage increase. Idaho (1.4%) and North Carolina (1.3%) also saw strong growth driven by domestic migration gains. Texas continued to grow quickly (1.2%), fueled by both natural change and international migration despite slowing gains from abroad; Utah’s (1%) increase came mainly from natural change as international migration slowed sharply.
The national data show that between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025:
– The U.S. population reached approximately 341.8 million.
– Net international migration fell by almost half—down to about 1.3 million from roughly double that amount one year earlier.
– If trends continue as projected by Census Bureau researchers writing on their Random Samplings blog, net international migration could drop further to around 321,000 by July 2026.
– Natural change nationwide remained near last year’s levels but continues to be much lower than before; for comparison it was about half what it was in the late-2010s.
Every U.S region reported some degree of growth but at slower rates than recent years:
– Growth in southern states dropped below one percent for only the second time since before COVID-19.
– The Northeast had its biggest slowdown—growth fell from nearly one percent last year to just two-tenths of one percent.
Only five states lost residents during this period: California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Vermont and West Virginia.
More states now have more births than deaths compared with recent years—a slight uptick nationally but still lower than past decades.
Florida had high numbers of new arrivals from abroad but saw a steep drop-off in Americans moving there domestically; neighboring Alabama surpassed Florida’s domestic influx during this time.
Puerto Rico’s population declined by about eighteen thousand people—a decrease mostly caused by more deaths than births rather than outward migration as seen previously.
The latest figures reflect updates in estimation methods using additional administrative data sources and refined short-term projections—further details are available on the Census Bureau’s blog.
Annual estimates such as these rely on current data about births, deaths and both domestic/international movement since completion of each decennial census—the most recent being conducted nationwide in April 2020—and are revised annually across all covered years whenever new information becomes available.
In March next year further breakdowns will be released covering smaller areas such as metropolitan regions within each state along with Puerto Rico municipalities.
With each annual update past estimates are revised back through all intervening years since the last census; comparisons should always be made within matching vintages due to periodic methodological changes.
