One yardstick of California’s popularity as a place to live made a slight improvement last year.
My trusty spreadsheet has collected annual migration data dating back to 2004 from three major moving van providers — Allied, Atlas and United. While having someone else move your stuff by van is usually an option for upper-crust Americans changing home states, this metric is worth following because it tends to parallel California’s competition for residents with other states.
For 2025, the three van companies found that, on average, 44% of their California interstate relocations were arrivals of new residents. And while that’s the fourth-lowest inbound share in the past 22 years, it also marked a rare improvement.
Last year’s outflow was a bump up from 2024, when 41% of California van moves were inbound — the second-lowest rate over these 22 years. California’s inbound share of van moves had decreased in five of the previous six years.
Despite the cooling of the outflow, 2025 was still below the average 47% inbound rate since 2004 and the 52% high of 2014. The all-time low was 41% in 2023.
Looking back
Last year, California van outflow declined across all three companies compared to 2024, marking only the third time in 14 years that these movers experienced such synchronized slips.
Yet each company’s inflows are near record lows.
Atlas had 46% inbound moves to California last year — its fifth-lowest since 2004. United saw 42% inbound — its third-lowest. Allied was at 43% — its eighth-lowest.
Looking back over two decades, the pandemic appears to have been a turning point for van movements in California.
From 2004 through 2019, California van moves averaged 49% inbound relocations. This includes the 2008-2014 period, when the Great Recession’s economic turmoil saw van moves into California exceed van moves out of the state.
Since coronavirus upended the economy, though, arrivals averaged just 42% of California relocations by vans.
Bottom line
Van moves represent a small slice of migration, typically affordable only to wealthier households or workers with an expenses-paid relocation from major corporations.
Still, California van moves often parallel domestic migration patterns.
Swings in inbound van moves have gone in the same direction as changes in the state’s net population loss to other states in 14 of the last 21 years. It’s worth noting that these two benchmarks of interstate relocations have moved in opposite directions over the past three years.
State demographics reports show California lost a net 215,500 residents to other states in the year ended in July 2025 — the first widening of the outmigration gap in four years.
That was 54% above 2024’s 140,100 net outflow and 24% below the average 183,800 outmigration since 2004.
California has long been a net loser of residents to other states. Outmigration since 2004 has ranged from only 34,200 in 2014 to 369,200 in 2023.
Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at [email protected]
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