For the first time in nearly 50 years, an annual study backed by America’s largest moving network found that Oregon led the country in the year of 2025 for the most inbound movers.
United Van Lines announced its findings in late December for its 49th Annual Movers Study, a leading industry analysis which offers a snapshot into migration patterns state-by-state using data from its parent company, UniGroup, which is the nation’s largest household item relocation organization. The results ranked the Beaver State at the top of the list for nearly 65% of shipments, or 1,188, coming into Oregon, in comparison to more than 650, or 35.5%, leaving the state.
The top reasons for movers both leaving and coming to the state related to family and work opportunities, though people entering Oregon tended to be younger on average, according to the study. Nearly half of the inbound movers reported an annual income of $150,000 or more.
But the most popular destinations in Oregon for out-of-state arrivals did not involve the state’s largest metropolitan area of Portland. Rather, the Eugene-Springfield area and Salem made the study’s top inbound metropolitan areas, ranking at first and seventh in the nation respectively. Portland was a significant contributor to Oregon’s nationwide ranking, according to researchers, but it ranked 30th for most inbound moves to a metropolitan area.
Eily Cummings, a spokeswoman for United Van Lines, said that the new research “reveals Americans are seeking a different pace of life, and destinations like Oregon, the Carolinas and the south are delivering it.”
“Springfield, specifically, offers a lower cost of living than other Oregon metros making it attractive because of its proximity to both Eugene and Portland,” the Missouri-based company said in a statement. “While the birth rate in Oregon is well below the national average, inbound migration is having an impact and shaping statewide population change, especially in the metro areas.”
Oregon’s population of more than 4 million people in 2021 began declining for the first time in decades in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the state’s senior population in the state is also growing twice as fast as the state’s working-age population. It was a key concern for business groups noted in an 11-page report released last year by analysts for the Oregon Business Plan. They warned that without significant population growth, there would be “slower economic dynamism, rising care needs, and tightening public budgets.”
“This is not Tom McCall’s 1970s fast growing U.S. and fast growing Oregon,” said John Tapogna, a senior policy adviser at the consulting firm ECONorthwest. “This is an era where elected leaders and civic leaders are going to have to be much more intentional and competitive about being attractive to households and to businesses in a way that they haven’t had to be in the past.”
Population and politics
Oregon has long relied on out-of-state migrants to supplant its numbers. From June 2024 to June 2025, Oregon experienced more deaths than births, but because of a net inward migration of 17,000 residents to the state, those decreases were offset, according to an analysis from the Portland State University’s Population Research Center announced in mid-December. United Van Lines’ survey found that California was the source of 22% of inbound movers to Oregon, according to Cummings, who noted that residents from Colorado, Washington, Texas and Montana also played a large role in Oregon’s numbers.
In 2026, state analysts predict that the state will have one of its lowest annual population growth rates of 0.34%, just under 2025’s rate of 0.35%, and that figure is expected to eventually plateau and hover around 0.4%, according to the most recent analysis through 2035 from the Office of Economic Analysis. A 0.4% increase would mean adding roughly 18,000 people per year.
Tapogna said that he hopes to see United Van LInes’ growth pan out in other economic and demographic indicators, such as census data, adding that Oregon can continue to improve its standing nationwide by improving its K-12 school performance outcomes, lowering housing costs and improving the business climate.
Another recently reported study from the company Atlas Van Lines, which tends to represent more corporate movers than residential accounts, found that more people left the state than moved into the state in the year of 2025, a trend it has reported since 2021. That study, however, used data from Nov. 1, 2024 to Oct. 31, 2025 rather than the United Van Lines study, which used the calendar year of 2025.
“We prefer to have that confirmed by more traditional, public sources like the census or the DMV right, but certainly worth reporting, and in and of itself, it’s encouraging,” Tapogna said. “Let’s hope it shows up reflected in other public data as well.”
Debates surrounding Oregon’s growth and migration have already made it to the 2026 Oregon governor’s race. Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek’s top political rival, Sen. Christine Drazan, a Republican gubernatorial candidate from Canby, blasted her for creating an environment where people are fleeing the state.
“Our governor may be in charge, but her state is out of control,” Drazan, a frontrunner for the Republican nomination who came within a few percentage points of defeating Kotek in 2022, said in October when announcing her campaign. “This place we love is so incredible and so beautiful, mountains, trees, our rivers, our ocean, abundant natural resources. So we have to stop and ask ourselves, why, despite all of this, are people leaving?
One of the bills Drazan has said she plans to introduce for the legislative session in February tackles education, seeking to reinstate essential skill graduation requirements for Oregon high school graduates. Oregon lawmakers passed legislation in 2021 suspending those mandates, removing key literacy, math and writing proficiency requirements for attaining a diploma.
Kotek, on the other hand, has vowed to introduce legislation to establish a “FastTrack Program” aimed at streamlining large projects that will create jobs and boost the state’s economic activity. Lawmakers on Wednesday in the House Rules Committee will also hear more from House Majority Leader Rep. Ben Bowman, D-Tigard, and his previously-announced proposals to streamline the permitting and rulemaking process.
“The governor recognizes that and has convened a prosperity council,” Tapogna said, pointing to a July CNBC ranking that listed Oregon at 39th nationwide for friendliness to businesses. “I think that’s a reflection of the fact that those statistics have fallen as far as they have.”
The governor announced the members of that 16-member council on Thursday. The advisory body, whose meetings are not open to the public, plans to hold its first meeting this month and deliver recommendations to Kotek for accelerating Oregon’s economy by June 30.
“I am counting on the expertise and talent gathered on this Council to help build the next decade of economic growth in Oregon,” Kotek said in a statement. “With actionable steps and a shared vision, we can and will create an economy that works for everyone.”
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