The South Soars: U-Haul Moving Data Shows 5 Southern States Prime Target For People Relocating

With the advent of the new year, U-Haul released data gathered from one-way moves showing migration within the United States is heavily weighted toward moving toward southern states, which are more politically conservative.

“Growth rankings are configured by each state’s net gain (or loss) of customers utilizing one-way U-Haul equipment in a calendar year. The U-Haul Growth Index is compiled from well over 2.5 million one-way U-Haul truck, trailer and U-Box moving container transactions that occur annually,” U-Haul explained.

The top growth states, according to U-Haul data, were, in order, South Carolina, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee in 2024. Leftist California ranked 50th for the fifth year in a row.

“State-to-state transactions from the past year reaffirm customer tendencies that have been pronounced for some time,” John Taylor, U-Haul International president, stated. “Migration to the Southeast and Southwest continues as families gauge their cost of living, job opportunities, quality of life and other factors that go into relocating to a new state. Out-migration remains prevalent for a number of markets across the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast — and particularly California.”

South Carolina, which had ranked fourth in 2023, soared to the top spot in 2024; Texas, which had placed at the top for three previous years and had ranked first or second every year since 2016, fell to second place. Florida has been fourth or higher every year since 2015.

“With so many people moving to the Carolinas, you have to ask yourself why,” Area District VP for the Carolinas Jason Hardin stated. “The Carolinas are a great place to live. I mean, we have Southern charm, we have a lot of history here; we got beaches; we have mountains; we have low cost of living. South Carolina is 7% lower on cost-of-living than anywhere else in the United States. So there’s no reason you wouldn’t want to move here. We have great schools, universities … like Duke and Wake Forest.”

South Carolina and Texas have voted for every GOP presidential candidate since 1976; with the exception of 2008, when Barack Obama barely eked out a victory by only .3%, North Carolina has voted the same; Tennessee has voted for every GOP presidential candidate since 2000, and Florida, which used to be a purple state, has changed to a solid red state under GOP Governor Ron DeSantis. As the AP noted in August, Florida has one million more Republican registered voters than Democrats, whereas in 2020, Democrats had 97,000 more registered voters than the GOP.