The above table is my adaption from a report by U-Haul. The truck rental company analyzes the flow of one-way rentals throughout the nation.
They don’t draw any conclusions, which is why I augmented their data with some of my observations (2025 tax rates in green).
Here’s some of what is in the company’s report.
Texas and Florida lead the list of in-migration states on the U-Haul® Growth Index analyzing one-way customer transactions during 2025, while California ranks last with the greatest out-migration number for the sixth consecutive year. Texas reclaims the title of No. 1 U-Haul growth state for the seventh time in 10 years. It climbs one spot from its previous ranking behind South Carolina, which slides four spots after being the leading growth state for 2024. Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee follow Texas as prime destinations. It’s the same top five from 2024 and 2023, although in a different order. The top 10 also includes Washington, Arizona, Idaho, Alabama and Georgia. While California’s exodus of do-it-yourself movers was greater than any other state, it saw a smaller net loss in 2025 than in 2024. Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Illinois also rank among the bottom five on the index.
Some people may be tempted to dismiss the U-Haul numbers as being unscientific. I think that’s a mistake since we now have years of data and a very large data set.
But for those who prefer academic rigor, Professors Traviss Cassidy, Mark Dincecco, and Ugo Antonio Troiano produced a study last year looking at a century of data about income taxes and migration.
Lo and behold, they conclude that people have voted with their feet.
…this paper…analyzed the…introduction of the income tax – using a new panel database that covers the entire twentieth century and the start of the twenty-first century across U.S. states. Our empirical strategy exploits the staggered adoption of the income tax over a 65-year period, and accounts for selective timing of adoption based on recent demographic and fiscal trends. We find that the introduction of the income tax increased total revenue per capita in the near run, medium run, and the long run for both early (i.e. pre-World War II) and late adopters (i.e. post-World War II), while total revenue in absolute levels increased in the medium or long runs for early adopters, but not for late adopters. We explain the fiscal results by showing that the introduction of the income tax by late adopters reduced state populations in the long run, as residents relocated to states that did not have the income tax. We find that both middle- and high-earning households exhibited strong migration responses.
For those who like visuals, here’s a chart from their study.
One big takeaway is that people in recent decades have been more willing to escape high state taxes.
Here’s a map from their report, showing when income taxes were first imposed.
The good news is that no state has been foolish enough to impose an income tax in recent decades (though the state of Washington is already a bit pregnant in that direction). Also, both Tennessee and New Hampshire now qualify as zero-income-tax states since they got rid of their levies on capital income. And the map is wrong in that Connecticut foolishly enacted on income tax in 1991.
