“My husband and I were over the desert heat, the nonstop growth and the traffic,” Laurel Jonas said. While Jonas, a real estate agent in Idaho, had moved away from Arizona amid a population boom, it’s her sentiments that could be behind a growing trend of residents leaving the state for greener pastures.
“I feel along the way Arizona got too big, too loud, too congested and just way too hot. It didn’t feel the same it once did. That’s exactly why we left Arizona for North Idaho,” she told Straight Arrow News.
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For decades, Arizona politicians boasted a steady stream of expats from other states looking for a more affordable place to live with milder winters. After years of population growth, new reports indicate that the Copper State’s cost of living is forcing more residents to load their moving van and head for the exit.
Moving company Atlas Van Lines is the latest to issue a report showing this trend. Its data shows Arizona is no longer a state with an outsized ratio of people moving in, but now is tied for fourth in terms of highest percentage of its customers leaving the state. From Nov. 1, 2024, to Oct. 31, 2025, Atlas found 57% of their interstate customers in Arizona were picking up their belongings to leave. That’s the highest percentage of outbound Arizonans the carrier service has seen in at least a decade.
Likewise, North American Moving Services shows Arizona’s ratio of inbound-to-outbound movers had evened out in 2024 and began showing signs of more exits than entries in 2025. Like Atlas, the moving service listed Arizona as a high-inbound destination for years.
Annual census estimates show net migration peaked in 2023 with nearly 114,000 more people moving to Arizona than leaving it. In 2024, that annual figure dropped to 87,000.
The glut of outward moves is a sudden change. In 2020, COVID-19 pandemic closures elsewhere and opportunities to buy relatively cheap homes with low interest rates saw 57% of Atlas’ Arizona hauls heading into the state. It was higher the year before.
“Arizona’s economy is booming. Paychecks are some of the fastest growing in the country. And we continue to provide an unbeatable quality of life,” then-Gov. Doug Ducey said of news that Maricopa County secured its third consecutive title for nation’s fastest-growing county in 2019.
What happened?
Years of new residents gobbling up housing and existing services have made the state once touted for its affordability increasingly unaffordable.
“Rising home prices, insurance costs, property taxes and child care costs have created a level of financial pressure that’s now showing up in migration data,” said pollster Mike Noble of Phoenix-based Noble Predictive Insights. “Polling picked this up early; the Atlas numbers are the downstream effect.”
Arizona wasn’t the only state to see this phenomenon.
“States that saw explosive growth in the 2010s and early 2020s — Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, parts of Texas and Florida — are now running up against the limits of affordability,” Noble told SAN. “When ‘growth states’ stop being affordable, they start behaving like ‘departure states.’ We’re now seeing that transition in real time.”
Where are they moving to?
Due to much higher interest rates than the “golden handcuffs” millions of households locked in a few years ago, most potential movers are staying put. For those who decide to pack up, they’re looking for places that resembled Arizona a decade ago.
“The ones who are making a move tend to be people who are being priced out of their current markets and looking for relief somewhere else,” Noble said. “That’s why you’re seeing inbound numbers jump in lower-cost states like Arkansas, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Idaho.”
Officials look to right the ship
Seeing the economic writing on the wall, Maricopa County announced significant changes to zoning ordinances Wednesday. The board voted to simplify its decades-old zoning ordinance that they hope will give housing projects more flexibility.
“Zoning decisions at the county level can have a significant impact on quality of life — from individual homeowners or renters to major companies looking to bring their business here,” Board Chairman Thomas Galvin said in a release. “The changes we’ve made will facilitate greater housing options, provide clarity for projects of all types, and protect the integrity of our communities.”
The state had enacted a law allowing for accessory dwelling units. Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed another bill that would have allowed for smaller homes.
The Census Bureau is scheduled to release its next annual population estimate in January.
