About 3.15 million American adults 65 and older move each year, and 19.7% moved across state lines, the Census Bureau found.
The Census Bureau tracked migration patterns of older adults across county, state and regions between 2015 and 2019 — the most recently released data. Few institutions track moving data at all, but especially moving data by age. For 2025 data, Becker’s used a 2026 report by Hire a Helper, a moving company, that analyzed 14.9 million national moves recorded between January 2025 and December 2025 recorded by PGM, a data provider.
In 2025, 2.1 million retirement-age adults moved, or 3.44% of the older adult population. The average age of retirees who relocated was 75.
Here are eight things hospital leaders should know.
1. The states gaining the most older adults net per year as of 2019 were Florida (53,150), Arizona (21,440), North Carolina (8,963), Texas (6,854) and South Carolina (5,525). In 2025, the states gaining the most older adults were South Carolina (5,427), Texas (5,156), North Carolina (3,202), Tennessee (3,191) and Arizona (2,512).
2. The states losing the most older adults net per year as of 2019 were New York (-23,420), California (-19,240), Illinois (-12,280), New Jersey (-9,832) and Ohio (-4,804). In 2025, California had a net loss of 12,963, followed by New York (-8,648), Illinois (-3,236), Massachusetts (-2,453) and New Jersey (-2,332).
3. By region, the South gained the most older adults by 2019 with about 72,900 new older adults per year. By contrast, the Northeast and Midwest lost about 46,800 and 34,900 older adults per year, respectively.
4. About 58% of interstate moves by older adults crossed into different regions.
5. Women are slightly more likely to move than men (6.5% vs. 5.9%), but men are marginally more likely to make interstate moves — 20.6% of men compared to 19.1% of women.
6. In 2024, older adults outnumbered children in 11 states, up from three in 2020, a June 2025 Census Bureau news release found. Those states are Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and West Virginia.
7. From 2020 to 2024, the number of metro areas with more older adults than children increased from 58 to 112 — representing nearly 30% of the nation’s metro areas. In 2024, Cleveland; Providence-Warwick, R.I.-Mass.; and Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, Conn. had more older people than younger people for the first time.
8. In 2025, the cities attracting the highest number of older adults were Las Vegas (7,854), Tucson, Ariz. (7,627), and Houston (7,287).
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