The U-Haul Growth index, which analyzes one-way customer transactions during 2025, shows California ranks last with the greatest out migration.

SAN DIEGO — The U-Haul Growth index, which analyzes one-way customer transactions during 2025, shows California ranks last with the greatest out migration for the sixth consecutive year. 

 U-Haul customers arriving in California accounted for 49.4% of all one-way traffic in and out of the state last year (50.6% leaving).

Compared to 2024, U-Haul reported customers coming to California fell 1% year-over-year while departures fell 2%. Because fewer residents left, California’s net loss of one-way movers was not as steep as in recent years, though it was still the largest number of any state.

“The U-Haul Data is just people who use U-Haul… It’s just important to keep that in mind… It’s not that California doesn’t have a large exodus of people,” Eric McGhee, a policy director and Senior Fellow with the Public Policy Institute of California, said. 

He reports that the state’s high cost of living is a key driver of this out-migration. 

“It’s just too expensive to live here. And so, if we brought down the cost of living, I think you would see more people moving in. We’re not in a situation in California where we’re losing people because they really don’t want to live here anymore. It’s more they can’t afford to live here anymore,” McGhee said. 

The Public Policy Institute of California also reported that partisanship now shapes the state’s migration too, with those moving out of the state more likely to be Republican, and those moving to California more likely to be Democratic. 

“I love it when I get to come back to San Diego. And I find that when I’m on the plane flying out, [and] I have talked to a lot of people, when I tell them ‘Oh, I would love to come back to California,’ and they’re like ‘Oh, I would love to leave.’ And so, it’s like ‘Why? Why would you want to leave?’ And universally, what I hear is ‘taxes’,” Marlo Greer, a political commentator, Denver-based attorney and California-native, said. 

Bill Fulton, with The Center for Housing Policy and Design at University of California San Diego told CBS 8 that more people are leaving California to move to other states than people moving from other states to California. 

“That trend has accelerated in the last few years, particularly since the beginning of COVID. We see half of the net migration going to Texas. But, there’s some wrinkles there… Just because a lot of people are moving to Texas from California doesn’t mean nobody is moving from Texas to California. The number of people moving out is growing. The number of people moving in is not shrinking,” Fulton said. 

While the state overall is seeing people leave, that’s not quite the case for the San Diego region. 

Fulton reported that in the last three years, San Diego has added more population than any other county in the state, except Riverside. The vast majority of that growth has taken place in the City of San Diego. 

“Population is growing more rapidly in the city. That may be because the city has made it easier to build housing.  And there’s been a lot of housing built in recent years,” Fulton said. 

Between 2022 and 2024, Fulton reported that San Diego added 43,000 residents, or about 12% of the entire statewide total. 

In that window, Fulton reported that 72% of the county’s population growth reportedly occurred in the City of San Diego. 

Between 2022 and 2025, he reported that the city added more than 30,000 new residents, pushing the population over 1.4 million for the first time ever. 

San Diego isn’t the only city in the county adding population. The Center for Housing Policy and Design found that Chula Vista added almost 5,000 people. And, on a percentage basis, Lemon Grove, San Marcos and Poway added even more than San Diego.