Some states are revolving doors and some never let go of their own, so we ranked the states where people never leave. Just over half of Americans, 56.5 percent, live in the state where they were born, but that average hides a canyon between Louisiana at 77 percent homegrown and Nevada at 28.5.
Louisiana is the most homegrown state in America, with 77 percent of its residents born there, followed by Michigan and Ohio.
Nevada is the least, at 28.5 percent, with Florida and DC essentially tied just above it around 35.
Texas wears the other crown: about 82 percent of people born there still live there, the highest retention of natives in the country.
California has the largest homegrown population in raw numbers, with 22,236,880 residents born in state.
In just three states, New York, California, and New Jersey, immigrants outnumber transplants from other states.
The map, the full two-measure table, and the story behind both crowns are below.
Which state has the most people born there?
Louisiana, and if you’ve ever met a Louisianan, you’re not surprised. Seventy-seven percent of the people living there were born there, ahead of Michigan at 75.1 percent and Ohio at 74.3, with Mississippi at 70 percent and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin just behind. The deep South and the industrial Midwest own this entire end of the list.
At the other end sit the transplant capitals. Nevada is the least homegrown state at 28.5 percent, and Florida and DC are statistically tied just above it around 35, with Arizona, Wyoming, New Hampshire, and Colorado all near 40.
One clarification before the table, because a widely cited ranking page fuses these ideas into nonsense. In Census tables, native-born means born in the United States, which is not the same as born in this state, and neither has anything to do with Native American population. We rank the born-in-this-state share.
Map: states where people never leave, ranked by the share of residents born in their state, darkest = most homegrown (Louisiana, 77.0%). Census American Community Survey, newest one-year estimates.Percentage of each state’s residents who were born there, from 28.5% in Nevada up to Louisiana’s 77.0%.
Source: Census Bureau, ACS 2024 one-year estimates, table B05002.
The table below shows every state plus DC on both measures: the percentage of residents born in the state, the raw count, where the rest come from, and the share of each state’s natives who still live there. Sort it however you want.
States where people never leave: all 50 states plus DC, ranked by the share of residents born in their state (Census ACS, newest one-year estimates). The last column is the share of each state’s natives who still lived there in 2021, computed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (no DC figure). Click a header to sort.
Rank
State
Born in state
Born-in-state count
Born other state
Foreign born
Natives who stayed (2021)
1
Louisiana
77.0%
3,541,177
17.0%
5.2%
69.3%
2
Michigan
75.1%
7,617,490
16.3%
7.7%
71.5%
3
Ohio
74.3%
8,825,863
19.2%
5.5%
69.7%
4
Mississippi
70.0%
2,061,181
26.7%
2.7%
64.4%
5
Pennsylvania
69.6%
9,101,777
20.2%
8.3%
68.7%
6
Wisconsin
69.4%
4,138,206
24.1%
5.5%
72.5%
7
Iowa
68.5%
2,220,710
24.3%
6.3%
61.7%
8
West Virginia
66.5%
1,176,444
30.9%
2.1%
55.6%
9
Indiana
66.4%
4,596,058
25.7%
7.0%
68.8%
10
Minnesota
66.4%
3,846,317
23.5%
9.0%
70.9%
11
Kentucky
66.3%
3,044,149
27.5%
5.2%
69.6%
12
Alabama
66.1%
3,410,122
28.5%
4.5%
71.6%
13
Illinois
65.6%
8,343,127
17.7%
15.4%
62.6%
14
Missouri
64.9%
4,053,780
29.3%
4.9%
68.1%
15
Nebraska
62.5%
1,254,124
27.4%
9.0%
60.4%
16
South Dakota
61.9%
572,002
33.3%
4.1%
54.2%
17
New York
61.6%
12,234,137
12.6%
23.3%
60.2%
18
North Dakota
60.3%
480,241
33.5%
5.3%
48.6%
19
Arkansas
59.9%
1,851,137
33.4%
5.8%
66.9%
20
Utah
59.5%
2,085,454
29.6%
9.8%
72.9%
21
Oklahoma
59.1%
2,419,460
33.2%
6.6%
68.8%
22
Kansas
59.0%
1,751,947
32.0%
7.8%
57.2%
23
Maine
58.3%
819,323
36.0%
4.7%
63.0%
24
Massachusetts
58.0%
4,137,777
20.4%
18.7%
62.6%
25
Texas
57.1%
17,872,260
22.7%
18.4%
82.2%
26
California
56.4%
22,236,880
14.4%
27.6%
73.0%
27
Tennessee
55.9%
4,042,513
36.5%
6.5%
71.3%
28
Hawaii
53.2%
769,522
25.3%
18.6%
58.0%
29
Connecticut
52.8%
1,941,558
27.6%
15.9%
59.0%
30
Georgia
52.7%
5,886,988
33.9%
11.9%
74.2%
31
North Carolina
52.5%
5,796,787
36.2%
9.9%
75.5%
32
Rhode Island
52.0%
578,852
28.8%
15.7%
55.2%
33
New Mexico
51.4%
1,094,103
37.4%
10.0%
61.1%
34
Montana
51.1%
580,775
45.9%
2.1%
58.5%
35
South Carolina
50.7%
2,776,719
41.6%
6.4%
71.9%
36
New Jersey
50.5%
4,793,603
22.1%
25.0%
59.6%
37
Virginia
48.4%
4,263,640
36.0%
13.5%
65.7%
38
Vermont
47.2%
306,020
47.3%
4.5%
56.5%
39
Maryland
46.4%
2,906,671
34.6%
17.1%
63.6%
40
Washington
46.3%
3,683,148
35.7%
16.1%
69.7%
41
Oregon
45.4%
1,941,659
43.2%
10.0%
67.3%
42
Idaho
43.4%
869,124
49.2%
6.3%
60.0%
43
Alaska
43.0%
318,336
47.4%
7.7%
48.7%
44
Delaware
42.5%
446,553
44.6%
11.6%
56.9%
45
Colorado
40.9%
2,436,528
46.9%
10.6%
63.3%
46
New Hampshire
40.5%
571,220
52.3%
5.9%
58.1%
47
Wyoming
40.4%
237,179
55.2%
3.5%
45.3%
48
Arizona
39.1%
2,967,759
45.8%
13.4%
71.5%
49
District of Columbia
34.8%
244,379
47.8%
15.5%
n/a
50
Florida
34.7%
8,117,473
38.1%
23.1%
72.7%
51
Nevada
28.5%
930,211
49.8%
19.9%
64.9%
–
USA
56.5%
192,192,460
27.0%
14.8%
n/a
Sources: Census Bureau, ACS 2024 one-year estimates, table B05002; Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (2021 ACS stickiness).
Which state actually keeps its natives?
Texas, and this is the number the internet keeps mixing up. About 82 percent of people born in Texas still live there, the highest retention in the nation per Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas research, followed by North Carolina at 75.5, Georgia at 74.2, California at 73.0, and Utah at 72.9. Louisiana wins on who’s already there; Texas wins on who stays.
The two crowns measure different things. Louisiana’s 77 percent counts the residents and asks where they were born; Texas’s 82 percent counts the native-born and asks whether they left. Texas can rank mid-table on the first measure, at 57.1 percent homegrown, while dominating the second, because millions keep moving in and diluting the born-here share.
Two crowns, two denominators. Both are true.
77.0%of Louisiana’s residents were born in Louisiana, the highest share of any statecomposition: who lives there (Census ACS, newest)
82%of people born in Texas still live in Texas, the highest retention of nativesretention: who stayed (Dallas Fed, 2021 ACS)
The least sticky states are Wyoming, where only 45.3 percent of natives remain, North Dakota, and Alaska, the only three states that lose more than half their native-born. The Dallas Fed’s researchers point to jobs, tax burdens, big metro options, and sheer state size as what keeps natives put. Their data also shows the whole ranking barely moved through the pandemic; no state shifted more than 3 points between 2017 and 2021.
This is not the U-Haul story. Retention isn’t net migration; a state can gain movers by the truckload and still quietly lose its natives, and the same research finds Texas had the lowest overall outmigration too, with Wyoming, Alaska, and Hawaii the highest.
The transplant capitals
Nevada, Florida, DC, and Arizona are states most of their own residents chose, not inherited. In Nevada and Florida, only about 1 in 3 residents were born in the state; everyone else arrived from somewhere else, chasing jobs, sunshine, or retirement.
Three states take it further. In New York, California, and New Jersey, the foreign-born share of the population is larger than the share born in other US states; in New York it’s 23.3 percent foreign-born against 12.6 percent domestic transplants. In those three, the classic American move-across-state-lines story is smaller than the immigration story.
The only three states where immigrants outnumber domestic transplants.
23.3%of New York’s residents are foreign-born, more than the 12.6% who moved in from other statesCensus ACS, newest one-year estimates
27.6%of California’s residents are foreign-born, more than the 14.4% who moved in from other statesCensus ACS, newest one-year estimates
25.0%of New Jersey’s residents are foreign-born, more than the 22.1% who moved in from other statesCensus ACS, newest one-year estimates
America is slowly becoming less homegrown
A decade ago, the Census Bureau’s own blog put the national born-in-state share at 59 percent, using 2014 data. The newest survey puts it at 56.5. That drift is the whole country becoming a little more mobile, one move at a time.
The state-level changes hide the better story. Pennsylvania fell hardest among the old top five, from 73.4 to 69.6, while Nevada, the least homegrown state in America, actually got more homegrown, rising from 25.8 to 28.5 as the boomtown generation’s kids grew up in place. Give a boomtown a generation and it starts producing natives.
Born-in-state share, a decade apart: ACS 2014 (Census Bureau analysis) vs ACS 2024. The US slipped, Pennsylvania slid, and Nevada, the least homegrown state, rose.
United States 201459.0%
United States 202456.5%
Pennsylvania 201473.4%
Pennsylvania 202469.6%
Nevada 201425.8%
Nevada 202428.5%
Florida 201436.1%
Florida 202434.7%
Sources: Census Bureau ACS 2024 1-year, table B05002; Census Bureau Random Samplings blog (ACS 2014).
Methodology: where these numbers come from
Born-in-state shares, counts, and the born-elsewhere breakdowns come from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2024 one-year estimates, table B05002, for the 50 states plus DC. The share of natives who stayed comes from Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas research computed on the 2021 ACS; we downloaded and verified their published chart data, which covers the 50 states and not DC. The decade comparison uses the Census Bureau’s 2015 analysis of 2014 ACS data.
Two definitions to keep straight: the born-in-state share asks where current residents were born, while retention asks where people born in a state live now. Residence data also can’t tell you who has never once left; it measures where people live, not where they’ve visited.
Composition: Census ACS 2024 1-year, table B05002 (born in state of residence)
Retention: Dallas Fed “stickiness” on ACS 2021 microdata (50 states, no DC)
Trend anchors: Census Bureau Random Samplings blog, ACS 2014
“Native-born” in Census tables = born in the US, not born in-state
For the flip side of this article, our moving statistics page covers the Americans who do move.
The bottom line
America is a nation of movers where most people still haven’t moved: 56.5 percent of us live in our birth state. Louisiana keeps its people through roots, Texas through jobs and size, and Nevada barely knew its residents as children.
If someone quotes you a number for your state, check the denominator first. Fifty-seven percent of Texans are homegrown and 82 percent of Texans stay, and both are true.
Frequently asked questions
Do most Americans live in the state they were born in?
Yes, barely: 56.5 percent of Americans live in the state where they were born, per the newest Census American Community Survey. A decade ago it was 59 percent. The share ranges from 77 percent in Louisiana down to 28.5 percent in Nevada.
What state has the least people born there?
Nevada has the smallest share of homegrown residents at 28.5 percent, per Census data. Florida at 34.7 percent and DC at 34.8 are statistically tied just above it. Arizona, Wyoming, New Hampshire, and Colorado all sit near 40 percent.
Which state has the most native-born residents?
It depends what you mean: native-born in Census terms means born in the US, not born in that state. By residents born in their own state, California has the biggest count at 22,236,880, while Louisiana has the biggest share at 77 percent. Neither measure refers to Native American population, which is a different Census category entirely.
What percentage of Americans never leave their home state?
Residence data can’t count people who never once left; it counts where people live now. By that measure, 56.5 percent of Americans currently live in their birth state, and in the stickiest state, Texas, about 82 percent of natives still live there. Visiting other states doesn’t show up in either number.
Why do people never leave some states?
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas researchers found the stickiest states share strong job growth, lower tax burdens, multiple big metros to move between, and large size that makes leaving expensive. The five stickiest states have 15 metro areas over a million people; the five least sticky have one. Housing costs push people out of the least sticky ones.
Sources
US Census Bureau. “American Community Survey, 2024 1-Year Estimates, Table B05002: Place of Birth by Nativity and Citizenship Status.” 2025. data.census.gov/table/ACSDT1Y2024.B05002
Chris Kolmar has been in the real estate business for almost ten years now. He originally worked for Movoto Real Estate as the director of marketing before founding HomeSnacks.
He believes the key to finding the right place to live comes down to looking at the data, reading about things to do, and, most importantly, checking it out yourself before you move.
If you've been looking for a place to live in the past several years, you've probably stumbled upon his writing already.
