For the first time since the Great Depression, more people are leaving the United States than moving in. The Brookings Institution calculated that the country experienced net negative migration of approximately 150,000 people in 2025, a historic reversal that hasn’t occurred since 1935, when desperate Americans sought work in the Soviet Union, according to the Mercury News. The think tank expects the outflow to increase further in 2026.
The shift is being driven by two simultaneous forces: a dramatic decline in immigration to the U.S. and a sharp rise in the number of American citizens heading abroad. A Wall Street Journal analysis of data from 15 countries found that at least 180,000 American citizens left the U.S. to live in other countries in 2025. At the same time, total in-migration to the U.S. fell to between 2.6 and 2.7 million, down from nearly 6 million in 2023.
The decline on the immigration side has been steep and swift. In January 2025, 53.3 million immigrants lived in the United States — the largest number ever recorded, according to Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data. But by June 2025, the foreign-born population had shrunk by more than a million people, marking its first decline since the 1960s. The immigrant share of the U.S. labor force dropped from 20% to 19%, a loss of over 750,000 workers in just five months.
Government enforcement actions have played a significant role. The Department of Homeland Security reported 675,000 deportations and 2.2 million “self-deportations” in 2025, as reported by Yahoo News. President Trump took 181 executive actions on immigration in his first 100 days after returning to the White House in January 2025, according to Pew Research Center.
Meanwhile, the exodus of American citizens is accelerating across multiple continents. Across all 27 European Union member states, the number of Americans arriving to live and work is reportedly at a record and rising, according to The Mirror US. More than 100,000 American students are now enrolled abroad seeking more affordable university degrees.
Ireland has emerged as a particularly popular destination. Data from Ireland’s Central Statistics Office showed the number of U.S. citizens relocating to the country surged by 96%, with 9,600 people moving to the Republic of Ireland from the U.S. in the 12 months leading up to April 2025, up from 4,900 the year prior. The influx has reshaped some neighborhoods — one of every 15 residents in Dublin’s Grand Canal Dock district was born in the U.S., according to local realtors.
Portugal has seen an even more dramatic transformation. The number of U.S. citizens living there has reportedly increased by 500% since the Covid pandemic, including a 36% spike in 2024 alone. Americans are also applying for British citizenship at the highest rate since record keeping began in 2004.
Perhaps the starkest indicator of the trend is the surge in Americans renouncing their citizenship entirely. Requests to renounce jumped 48% in 2024, according to immigration firms, as reported by Greatandhra. An estimated 1,285 U.S. citizens expatriated in the first quarter of 2025 — a 102% increase compared with the last quarter of 2024, according to CS Global Partners’ analysis of Federal Register statistics cited by The Spokesman-Review. The U.S. government now reportedly has a month-long backlog of Americans seeking to give up their citizenship.
Before 2009, only several hundred Americans renounced their citizenship per year, according to Boundless Immigration citing Federal Register data. The figure has since risen to over 5,000 annually, peaking at about 6,700 in 2020. The current trajectory suggests that record could soon be eclipsed.
The profile of those leaving is also shifting. Expatsi founder Jen Barnett stated that her company’s goal is “to move one million Americans” and noted that those departing are now “ordinary people” rather than just highly credentialed adventurers. The growing industry around American emigration underscores how mainstream the phenomenon has become.
Tracking the full scope of the departure remains difficult. The U.S. has not collected comprehensive statistics on the number of citizens leaving since the Eisenhower administration, according to Slashdot, meaning the actual numbers could be significantly higher than current estimates suggest.
A White House spokesman has pointed to continued interest in the U.S., reportedly noting that some ultra-high net worth foreigners are paying $1 million for a Gold Card to settle in the country. Yet the broader data paints a picture of a nation experiencing a population shift unseen in 90 years — one that could carry profound economic consequences as the immigrant share of the labor force continues to shrink and American citizens increasingly look beyond their borders for opportunity.
