Counties Attracting Most Newcomers in 2013 Are in Austin-TX, Houston-TX, Phoenix-AZ, Las Vegas-NV, and Seattle-WA; Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago Lose Most

Recently released data from the Internal Revenue Service shows that county-to-county net migration (total in-migrants minus out-migrants) is the highest in Travis County, TX (Austin), which gained 24,000 households in 2013 from outside the Austin metro. Travis County gained a remarkable 10,000 more returns than the county in second place.

“Households” is a proxy for the IRS-reported number of tax returns. Intra-metro relocations were excluded from this analysis.

Harris County, TX (in Houston) attracted 14,000 new households, followed by Maricopa County, AZ (7,400), Clark County, NV (6,100) and King County, WA (5,100).

Households relocating out of the metro were highest in Los Angeles County, CA (-13,600), Miami-Dade County, FL (-12,400), and Cook County, IL (-7,700) in Chicago.

Click here to download a spreadsheet of data for all counties.