According to our Unleash Prosperity Vote with Your Feet website (we hope you are using it), North and South Carolina were two of the four states with the most net domestic migration in 2025.

The Carolinas were already growing, but now at an even faster pace.

Between 2012 and 2023 South Carolina added 540,000 net domestic migrants according to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which estimates interstate moves through its annual comparison of moves by taxpayers. South Carolina’s net domestic migration over the period exceeded the entire populations of the state’s four largest cities (Charleston, state capital Columbia, North Charleston and Mount Pleasant). Only neighboring North Carolina, as well as Florida and Texas gained more net domestic migrants. But those are much bigger states.  As a percent of population, South Carolina takes the top spot.

Between 2012 and 2023 South Carolina added net domestic migrants from New York (77,500), New Jersey (47,000) and California (27,900). North Carolina, which led the nation in net domestic migration in 2022-2023, lost the most net domestic migrants to South Carolina (78,400).

South Carolina isn’t full of cotton and tobacco farmers anymore. South Carolina (specifically the Charleston area) has become the sole Boeing 787 assembly plant for this best-selling wide-body jet.