NC population continues to swell as anti-immigration efforts slow national growth
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- North Carolina added 145,907 residents to reach 11,197,968, third-fastest growth rate.
- Domestic migration drove growth, helping North Carolina outpace the national 0.5% rise.
- U.S. slowdown stems from a sharp drop in net international migration, from 2.7M to 1.3M.
North Carolina remains one of the nation’s fastest-growing states, even as U.S. population growth declined significantly as a result of fewer people entering the country, according to new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
North Carolina added an estimated 145,907 people to its population in the year ending last July 1, more than all other states except Texas and Florida. The state’s rate of growth — 1.3% — was the third fastest during that time, behind only Idaho and the nation’s new fastest-growing state, South Carolina.
North Carolina had an estimated 11,197,968 residents last July 1, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. It remains the country’s ninth most populous state but is gaining on Georgia, which had 11,302,748 residents.
Much of North Carolina’s population growth is driven by people moving in from other states. Relatively high domestic migration helped the state outpace the national growth rate of .5%, according to the Census Bureau.
Migrants from outside the country have been a big driver in the nation’s population growth in recent years. The Census Bureau estimated last year that about 84% of the 3.2 million increase in the national population between 2023 and 2024 was the result of international migration.
In the most recent year, the nation’s population grew by about 1.8 million. The year coincides with the first six months of the Trump administration and its efforts to stem immigration.
“The slowdown in U.S. population growth is largely due to a historic decline in net international migration, which dropped from 2.7 million to 1.3 million in the period from July 2024 through June 2025,” Christine Hartley, the Census Bureau’s assistant division chief for estimates and projections, said in a statement. “With births and deaths remaining relatively stable compared to the prior year, the sharp decline in net international migration is the main reason for the slower growth rate we see today.”
While it remains among the fastest-growing states, North Carolina’s pace of growth slowed last year, to 1.3% from nearly 1.7% the year before. North Carolina, like every other state, had lower net international migration compared to the year before.
Nationwide, every state added population last year except for five: California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Vermont and West Virginia.
More than half of states attracted more residents from other states than they lost. But one state, Florida, saw a big drop in domestic migration last year. Florida’s net domestic migration of 22,517 was down sharply from 183,646 two years earlier and 310,892 in 2022, according to the Census Bureau.
This story was originally published January 27, 2026 at 11:13 AM.
