How many Californians moved to Nevada last year?

More Californians moved to Nevada last year than in 2023, showing a potential turnaround in relocation trends, according to new data.

In 2024, 38,970 Californians moved to the Silver State, topping the 2023 total of 36,507, according to driver’s license surrender numbers from the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The high water mark for Californians moving to Nevada was in 2021 (47,376) during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. That number dropped to 42,569 in 2022.

Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s chief economist, said the new data suggests a potential return to pre-pandemic population trends in the Las Vegas Valley.

“People have been increasingly moving to Las Vegas from more expensive metros since 2015 at least,” she said. “The pandemic accelerated that, but the end of the pandemic temporarily reversed the trend, and now I think we are back to the normal trend of more people moving to Las Vegas from California each year.”

Redfin reports over the past few years show Los Angeles as the top source of people moving to Nevada. The average home price in the Los Angeles region currently sits at $1.06 million, versus $440,000 in the Las Vegas Valley, according to Redfin.

Who is moving to Nevada?

A recent Storage Cafe report that analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data further detailed what is driving Californians to move to Nevada — and it’s not just the wealthy.

“Nevada’s appeal is broad, attracting a diverse mix of newcomers — not just the high-income earners often cited as driving up competition for housing and services,” the report said. “In fact, many transplants report incomes below the California average.” For example, millennials earn “about $6,000 less than their national peers, with an average income of $53,000 compared to the national millennial average of $59,000.”

According to the report, millennials made up the largest share of the movers (27.3 percent), followed by baby boomers (20.1 percent).

The busiest route for movers is Los Angeles County to Clark County, representing about 22 percent of all movers from the one state to the other. The second busiest is Orange County to Clark County, followed by San Bernardino County to Clark County.

The biggest route for remote workers is from Santa Clara County, California to Washoe County (60 percent of all those migrants work from home) followed by Contra Costa County to Clark County (50 percent).

Clark County added approximately 57,566 residents to its overall population in 2016, a number that has yet to be eclipsed, according to the 2024-2060 Population Forecast report for 2024 from UNLV’s Center for Business and Economic Research.

The county is expected to hit 3 million residents in 2042 according to the CBER report, growing “steadily” in the near future and continuing to grow at more than 1 percent per year up until 2039, when it will have 2.9 million residents.

Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.