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Money & Accountability / IRS SOI Migration Data

Where the taxpayers go

Between 2021 and 2022, 4.05M filer households changed which state they call home - and carried $403B of income across state lines with them. The IRS watches it happen, one address change at a time. Florida gained the most; California lost the most.

$403B in income crossed a state line, one year
Migrant households
4.1M filers
Biggest gain
Florida +$36.0B
Biggest loss
California -$23.8B
Full

Every figure is measured from year-over-year address changes on filed individual tax returns: a household counts as a migrant when the state on its 2022 return differs from its 2021 one. "Filers" are returns (about one per household); "income" is aggregate adjusted gross income, reported by the IRS in thousands of dollars. Small flows are suppressed for privacy and never counted.

Net AGI migration · 2021–2022

The money-follows-people map

Florida gained +$36.0B of adjusted gross income in a single year; California lost -$23.8B. Emerald states took in more income than they sent away; rust states sent away more than they took in. The map shades net AGI; the table keeps the exact figures.

Alabama: +$794M net AGI Alaska: -$313M net AGI Arizona: +$3.7B net AGI Colorado: +$1.5B net AGI Florida: +$36.0B net AGI Georgia: +$705M net AGI Indiana: -$551M net AGI Kansas: -$608M net AGI Maine: +$702M net AGI Massachusetts: -$3.9B net AGI Minnesota: -$2.2B net AGI New Jersey: -$5.3B net AGI North Carolina: +$4.6B net AGI North Dakota: -$252M net AGI Oklahoma: +$482M net AGI Pennsylvania: -$2.8B net AGI South Dakota: +$583M net AGI Texas: +$10.1B net AGI Wyoming: +$982M net AGI Connecticut: -$1.0B net AGI Missouri: -$582M net AGI West Virginia: -$44M net AGI Illinois: -$9.8B net AGI New Mexico: -$132M net AGI Arkansas: +$468M net AGI California: -$23.8B net AGI Delaware: +$613M net AGI District of Columbia: -$1.1B net AGI Hawaii: +$348M net AGI Iowa: -$517M net AGI Kentucky: +$39M net AGI Maryland: -$2.7B net AGI Michigan: -$1.4B net AGI Mississippi: +$125M net AGI Montana: +$1.1B net AGI New Hampshire: +$887M net AGI New York: -$14.2B net AGI Ohio: -$2.1B net AGI Oregon: -$533M net AGI Tennessee: +$4.7B net AGI Utah: +$1.1B net AGI Virginia: -$2.2B net AGI Washington: -$1.7B net AGI Wisconsin: -$310M net AGI Nebraska: -$299M net AGI South Carolina: +$4.8B net AGI Idaho: +$1.7B net AGI Nevada: +$3.1B net AGI Vermont: +$270M net AGI Louisiana: -$882M net AGI Rhode Island: -$131M net AGI
Net AGI, one year
  1. -$23.8B to -$1.7B
  2. -$1.7B to -$313M
  3. -$313M to +$348M
  4. +$348M to +$1.1B
  5. +$1.1B to +$36.0B
State table - the ranked source of truth
Biggest income gainsNet AGINet filers
Florida+$36.0B+125,551
Texas+$10.1B+88,216
South Carolina+$4.8B+32,927
Tennessee+$4.7B+30,935
North Carolina+$4.6B+43,653
Arizona+$3.7B+22,102
Biggest income lossesNet AGINet filers
California-$23.8B-144,203
New York-$14.2B-108,586
Illinois-$9.8B-45,460
New Jersey-$5.3B-20,820
Massachusetts-$3.9B-26,033
Pennsylvania-$2.8B-14,630

Net adjusted gross income = income moving in minus income moving out, in quintile classes · Emerald = net gain, rust = net loss · Real IRS SOI migration 2021–2022 · 50 states + DC

Winners & losers · 2021–2022

By the money, and by the people

The same handful of states top both ledgers, but not in the same order. Sun Belt states gain the most income; they do not always gain the most households, because who moves matters as much as how many. Bars reach right for a net gain, left for a net loss.

By the moneyNet adjusted gross income
  1. Florida +$36.0B
  2. Texas +$10.1B
  3. South Carolina +$4.8B
  4. Tennessee +$4.7B
  5. North Carolina +$4.6B
  6. Arizona +$3.7B
  7. Nevada +$3.1B
  8. Maryland -$2.7B
  9. Pennsylvania -$2.8B
  10. Massachusetts -$3.9B
  11. New Jersey -$5.3B
  12. Illinois -$9.8B
  13. New York -$14.2B
  14. California -$23.8B
By the peopleNet filer households
  1. Florida +125,551
  2. Texas +88,216
  3. North Carolina +43,653
  4. South Carolina +32,927
  5. Tennessee +30,935
  6. Georgia +24,028
  7. Arizona +22,102
  8. Pennsylvania -14,630
  9. Maryland -15,953
  10. New Jersey -20,820
  11. Massachusetts -26,033
  12. Illinois -45,460
  13. New York -108,586
  14. California -144,203
Net gain (moved in) Net loss (moved out) Top 7 gainers and 7 losers on each measure · bars share one scale per chart
Biggest corridors · 2021–2022

The pipes the money flows through

One route carries more income than any other: New York to Florida, $9.5B of AGI on 51,967 households in a single year. These are gross one-way flows, the individual pipes - the states losing income appear again and again on the left, the Sun Belt on the right.

  1. 1 NY FL New York to Florida $9.5B 51,967 hh
  2. 2 CA TX California to Texas $7.9B 54,136 hh
  3. 3 NY NJ New York to New Jersey $5.9B 46,761 hh
  4. 4 NJ FL New Jersey to Florida $5.3B 23,128 hh
  5. 5 CA FL California to Florida $4.5B 24,011 hh
  6. 6 CA NV California to Nevada $4.1B 30,571 hh
  7. 7 IL FL Illinois to Florida $4.1B 17,728 hh
  8. 8 CA WA California to Washington $3.9B 27,550 hh
  9. 9 FL NY Florida to New York $3.6B 18,948 hh
  10. 10 NY CA New York to California $3.4B 19,708 hh

Gross one-way filer flows, ranked by adjusted gross income carried · Real IRS SOI migration 2021–2022

County net AGI · 2021–2022

Where it lands, county by county

Palm Beach County, FL took in +$5.0B more income than it lost - the biggest county gain in the country. At the other end, Cook County, IL lost -$7.2B. County net counts every domestic move, within a state as well as across state lines, so metro flight shows up here that the state map cancels out.

Biggest county gains
  1. Palm Beach CountyFL +$5.0B +3,672 hh
  2. Collier CountyFL +$4.4B +3,423 hh
  3. Sarasota CountyFL +$2.6B +5,340 hh
  4. Clark CountyNV +$2.3B +8,403 hh
  5. Lee CountyFL +$2.2B +7,987 hh
  6. Miami-Dade CountyFL +$2.1B -13,998 hh
  7. Maricopa CountyAZ +$1.8B +6,993 hh
  8. Broward CountyFL +$1.5B -1,140 hh
  9. Denton CountyTX +$1.4B +8,221 hh
  10. Pinellas CountyFL +$1.4B +4,641 hh
  11. Williamson CountyTX +$1.2B +8,206 hh
  12. Hillsborough CountyFL +$1.1B +4,896 hh
Biggest county losses
  1. Cook CountyIL -$7.2B -29,463 hh
  2. Los Angeles CountyCA -$6.3B -52,921 hh
  3. Santa Clara CountyCA -$5.8B -12,457 hh
  4. San Francisco CountyCA -$4.8B -4,373 hh
  5. New York CountyNY -$3.7B -564 hh
  6. King CountyWA -$3.6B -5,148 hh
  7. San Mateo CountyCA -$2.6B -4,742 hh
  8. Kings CountyNY -$2.5B -22,467 hh
  9. Alameda CountyCA -$2.5B -11,991 hh
  10. Queens CountyNY -$2.4B -25,056 hh
  11. Suffolk CountyMA -$2.2B -9,389 hh
  12. Hennepin CountyMN -$1.6B -6,130 hh

Net adjusted gross income per county, all US domestic moves · top 12 each way · Real IRS SOI county migration 2021–2022

Notes on the data

Methodology

Every figure here is a direct aggregation of the IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) county-to-county migration data, published at irs.gov. The IRS builds it by matching individual income tax returns year to year: when the address on a household's 2022 return sits in a different state or county than its 2021 return, that return - and the income and exemptions on it - counts as a move. This dashboard is badged Full - real bulk data, nothing curated.

What the three numbers mean

Returns (IRS field n1) approximate households or filers - roughly one return per household. Exemptions (n2) approximate people. AGI is aggregate adjusted gross income, reported by the IRS in thousands of dollars; we carry it in thousands and format to dollars only for display. Nationally 4.05M households made an interstate move carrying $403B of AGI in this one-year window.

Interstate net, and the summary-code trap

The state files carry both real state-to-state rows and per-state summary rows - "Total Migration-US", "-Same State", "-Foreign", "Non-migrants" - flagged with pseudo-FIPS 96, 97 and 98. Summing those on top of the detail rows would double-count badly. We keep only rows whose origin and destination are both one of the 50 states or DC and differ from each other, i.e. genuine interstate moves; summing them reproduces the IRS's own "Total Migration-US" total exactly. A state's net is its interstate inflow minus its interstate outflow, computed for returns, exemptions and AGI alike. Same-state moves and foreign migration are excluded from the state map and rankings.

Counties count every domestic move

The county gainers and losers use each county's own "Total Migration-US" totals, which include every US domestic move - across state lines and between counties within a state. That is deliberate: a metro can hollow out into its own suburbs, a flow the state-level net cancels to zero. County net is therefore not comparable one-to-one with the state net; it answers a different question ("where did income land?").

Suppression, and what this is not

The IRS suppresses small flows to protect taxpayer privacy, coding them -1; we treat any negative as absent and never sum it, so a suppressed cell can never masquerade as a real figure. Two honest limits: this counts only people who file a federal return, so the very lowest incomes and some retirees are under-represented; and AGI is income as reported for 2021, which is not the same as wealth. It is a strong, consistent signal of where filers and their reported income move - not a census.

Generated 2026-07-12 00:44 UTC

Source: IRS SOI Tax Stats - county-to-county migration data (2021-2022), irs.gov

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