Conservatives like to depict falling population levels in California, the result of a departures, as proof that Democrat stronghold is proving that the party’s policies are failures. So what are they to make of the fact that the US moved in 2025 into net emigration, the product not merely of an exodus of “illegal” immigrants but also an increase in the number of Americans choosing to become expats? If this trend holds, the US faces the prospect of population contraction, since its birth rate, currently 1.6 per reproduction-age woman, is well below the replacement rate.
The Wall Street Journal published an in-depth treatment of the expat piece of this equation, Americans Are Leaving the U.S. in Record Numbers, which includes findings from interviews. While the article tries to depict the departures as not mainly driven by the desire to lower living costs, a more careful reading finds economic considerations, more broadly defined, to be a significant factor. For instance, the story mentions that “The number of U.S.-based academics seeking jobs overseas rose by more than a fifth last year… Professors teaching abroad blamed the American right for slashing research funding, and the left for policing university speech.” Ahem. If your career prospects have been seriously diminished due to cuts in investigation budgets and foreign institutions are clambering to hire you, that is an economic factor and one directly produced by Trump. It’s hard to see speech constraints as a driver save in a comparatively small minority of cases. The Journal bringing that up looks like an attempt to throw a bouquet to the Administration.
But consider this:
A Gallup poll last year found 40% of American women, ages 15-44, would like to permanently move overseas, if possible. By comparison, in 2023, the same pollster found that a slightly smaller proportion of sub-Saharan Africans—37%—wished to do the same.
Even allowing for the fact that surveys often elicit responses skewed to what the respondents think the questioner wants to hear, this is an extraordinary response. Women are stereotypically and often actually more relationship oriented than men. The fact that such a high proportion is seriously entertaining the idea of moving far away from family and friends says something is wrong on a collective level. My take? “It’s the neoliberalism, stupid.” This is the result of organizing society unduly to serve the needs of commerce, by weakening community ties, by emphasizing mobility because careers, and making raising a family even harder than it is inherently.
The article hinges its contention on the notion that better living costs are not a major impetus on the fact that migration to Europe increased even as the dollar dropped 12% versus the Euro. But the fact that the dollar now buys less in the Eurozone does not even begin to establish that many if not most had relative living costs as the major factor in their decisions. The US is in the midst of an affordability crisis. In particularly, medical insurance and treatment costs keep rising at an alarming rate. Most EU destinations likely still offer a purchasing-power advantage, even if not as large as when the greenback was stronger.
The story does provide a lot of good “big picture” information. It points out that the last time the US saw net out-migration was 1935, when the lousy-looking US prospects made Soviet Russia look like greener pastures. The Journal argues at the top that the impact of Trump policies against undocumented migrants mask the rising number of Americans who no longer see staying in the US as a great option:
Beneath the stormy optics of that immigration crackdown, however, lies a less-noticed reversal: America’s own citizens are leaving in record numbers, replanting themselves and their families in lands they find more affordable and safe …
More than 100,000 young students are enrolled abroad for a more affordable university degree. In nursing homes mushrooming across the Mexican border, elderly Americans are turning up for low-cost care….
Some commentators have labeled this wave of American emigrants the “Donald Dash” since numbers have spiked under President Trump’s second term. But the phenomenon has been building for years—fed by the rise of remote work, mounting living costs and an appetite for foreign lifestyles that feel within reach, especially in Europe.
A White House spokesman said the U.S. economy is far outpacing other developed nations and the Trump administration policies were deporting hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants and attracting “countless ultra-high net worth foreigners,” who are “shelling out $1 million for a Gold Card to come settle in the United States.”
The U.S. experienced net negative migration—an estimated loss of some 150,000 people—in 2025, and the outflow will likely increase in 2026, according to calculations by the Brookings Institution, a public-policy think tank. The number could be larger or smaller because official U.S. data doesn’t yet fully capture the number of people leaving, Brookings analysts noted. The total in-migration was between around 2.6 and 2.7 million in 2025, down from a peak of almost 6 million in 2023.
The U.S. saw 675,000 deportations and 2.2 million “self-deportations” last year, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.
A Wall Street Journal analysis of 15 countries providing full or partial 2025 data showed that at least 180,000 Americans joined them—a number likely to be far higher when other countries report full statistics.
Getting decent data is a problem. Some expats test the waters before finally deciding to take the plunge, so they may still have retained a US residence and other anchors that would lead them to be assessed as still here even if they are spending a lot of time abroad. Others abuse tourist visas. Those on student visas are omitted.
The article continues:
There is no single data set that precisely registers the estimated 4 to 9 million Americans already living outside the U.S. The State Department estimated 1.6 million lived in Mexico in 2022, a number that has likely grown in the postpandemic years—although recent cartel violence has unnerved some expats. Canada’s count, at more than 250,000, doesn’t fully capture dual citizenship, or the flow of Americans whose daily lives straddle the border. The U.K. hosts more than 325,000—part of the more than 1.5 million now living in Europe, per the Association of Americans Resident Overseas, a Paris-based nonprofit.
The story gives a lot of attention to Europe, which is experiencing (suffering?) record high levels of American arrivals that looks set to increase further. Aside from a reasonable level of cultural commonality, most readers likely know that most EU states will confer citizenship on applicants with at least one grandparent or parent from that nation. On top of that, many countries (notably Spain, Greece, Cyprus and last I checked, Uruguay) also offer citizenship for a certain, not catastrophic, level of inbound funds transfer and/or a minimum level of expenditure on real estate. It concedes that the EU is a really good deal for most:
The bargain: The U.S. has larger salaries, mobile talent and millions of citizens craving a better life. Europe needs such workers—and their income—to prop up a pension system so top-heavy that French retirees now outearn working age adults, according to the Luxembourg Income Study, a research agency. European salaries are constrained by high taxes and low growth. Retailers, restaurants and real-estate agents want foreign clientele.
In return, Europe offers inexpensive healthcare, walkable cities dotted with sidewalk bistros and co-working spaces where English has displaced the local tongue. Housing in many cities remains comparatively cheap and plentiful. Schools are affordable, safe and, excluding universities, generally higher-rated than America’s.
Some are not seeking only foreign residence but also to escape worldwide taxation of US income:
If there was any thought that this was a fleeting pandemic-era experiment of laptop nomads logging in from distant shores, data hints at its longevity. The U.S. government has a monthslong backlog of Americans asking to renounce their citizenship, either to secure a foreign passport or to avoid taxation of their earnings abroad. In 2024, requests jumped 48% and likely outpaced that in 2025, immigration firms say.
The piece further stresses that this shift goes beyond the existing trend of retirees moving abroad to lower costs and perhaps find some late-in-life adventure. More with children are decamping, with high odds that they will also attend college overseas.
The Journal conducted extensive interviews. Many seem to have awakened to smell the coffee that living in the US was no longer so hot:
Across dozens of interviews, U.S. expats described their motivations as a tangle of economic incentives, lifestyle preferences and disenchantment with the trajectory of America, citing violent crime, cost of living and turbulent politics. Trump’s re-election was a factor for many—although others voted for him. But the structural and societal shift runs much deeper. When Gallup asked Americans during the 2008 recession how many wanted to leave the U.S., the answer was one in 10. Last year: One in five.
I knew in the 1990s that I would become an expat but was still anchored here by the need to earn a living. One thing even the interviewees do not address is the considerable stress of relocating abroad. When I moved to Sydney in 2002 (and Australia is as culturally close as you can get to the US, with better weather), despite having made 3 one-month exploratory trips and having full meeting schedule on each, I still found I needed to have a drink every day for my first three months (and I am normally pretty abstemious). The reason? Despite my considerable advance work, I was still having frequent surprises about how things I had not anticipated were different than in the US. It was not even that these new findings were bad, just that I was too often surfacing previously unknown unknowns.
The piece completely omits practical issues of moving abroad, as in the high level of friction, like managing bank accounts and investments, visa hurdles, restrictions on real estate ownership, and often, having to deal with two tax systems. I found a self-professed top expat publication to be completely behind the eight ball on what was happening in Malaysia, which had been my top pick (a sudden and radical increase in income requirements for a long-term visa made it a non-starter) was a stark demonstration of the need to take expert advice with a fistful of salt.
Similarly, a friend who has lived here 17 years has just been offered a fantastic opportunity in Vietnam, and is also very taken with how vibrant and high-functioning it is. But he says he is too old to learn a new system again, all of the same day-to-day things about how a government and society operates.
The article is heavy on anecdata, like the appeal of good gelato, (something you can readily find in the foodie capital of NYC), cheap medical care, high quality, welcoming schools (only one out of twelve students interviewed plans to return to the US) and charm.
Mind you, I have no regrets over my two years in Sydney and my current life in Southeast Asia. But doing it yourself is much much harder than being posted abroad by a big multinational and having them handle and even pay for a lot of the fuss. If you are considering going this route, be sure you get good information and also have an accurate register of your adaptability. If you didn’t move much when younger, the dislocation of a big jump overseas might be emotionally harder to handle than you anticipated.
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I’m getting a “not found” message for the link.
At any rate, I’d be curious about the percentage of those leaving that already had close family in other countries.
Admittedly my sample is anecdata but I have to say exceedingly few. I knew as an adult of just about no one that had relatives overseas. One had 30 cousins in Israel and she still intended to retire in Switzerland. Another came from Poland, studied in the US and did get citizenship, but later moved back to Poland. One Japanese from an elite family became a Goldman partner and moved back to Japan. I had a Greek office mate at McKinsey, not sure if he became a US citizen but he moved back to Greece. I can name others of that stripe, non-Americans who came here and got green cards or citizenship and later returned to their country of origin. That is not what you were interested in. But if any had become citizens like my Polish fried, they would be counted as expats in the stats.
So I cannot name a single American from my (not provincial) circle that had close relatives abroad, let alone had their relationship with them facilitate a move overseas.
I would venture that it depends on which circles that one runs. If you’re an urban professional, I wonder whether the chances are greater that one is a third or fouth generation immigrant and links to the “old country” are tenuous and diluted. Your anecdotal examples in the finance industry suggest more robust and diverse means for relocation and no need for relatives.
I suspect that when you go down lower in class to laborers and semi-skilled workers with smaller fixed incomes leaving the country, you’ll find most who are leaving the US have familial and cultural links with their new domicile. You noted the biggest factor for that probability.
“But doing it yourself is much much harder than being posted abroad by a big multinational and having them handle and even pay for a lot of the fuss.” Family and some sort of roots are the third way to do it. Direction, advice and maybe even a connection or two.
I know a handful with modest means at or within 5-10 years of retirement leaving for Mexico, Ireland, Serbia and Greece. I’m sure there are others. Their parents or grandparents immigrated to the US. They know a little or a lot of the local languages and customs. The money goes further in those places. Even with few skills, they can find prospects for modest extra income. Having such part time work also makes assimilation smoother. They have some sort of standing in the community very quickly.
In addition, they have role models that have trailblazed the path. In the late 1970s and 80s in Chicago, I met all sorts of people who came and worked in the US for 20, 30, 40, years who knew they were going back the moment they stepped “off the boat” it used to be described.
Details for which I have nothing but anecdotes.
In my MBA class, there were plenty of people one generation or less from working class. But this was in the days when the US was a big manufacturer. Similarly, until the 1990s, journalists came nearly entirely from working class families. So that shift would not be much evident in my peer group. For instance, one Harvard MBA in the class behind me was unabashedly from a working class background, had an Italian accent so thick you could cut it with a knife. Went into real estate. Became a partner super fast. Clients loved him.
However, to your point, lawyers then were more likely to come from longer-standing educated families.
My question is if this counts dual nationals.
An enormous number of Americans with Mexican citizenship have moved to Mexico over the last roughly 10 years. There’s an entire neighborhood of Mexico City (Tabacalera/area around Monument a la Revolución) that used to be kind of working class but where you now hear a lot of American accented English and Spanish, mostly 20-40-year-old range. Even with a local job, they have better prospects for owning their own apartment and starting a family than in the US (partly because English confers more advantages in Mexico’s job market than Spanish does in the US). Some of these are self-deportees who never had US citizenship, but many still have it. Also there is a social media trend of people denouncing DACA and self-deporting, which seems shocking when you consider this is effective overly exile
In my anecdotal experience by far the majority of US expats are either students or (semi)retirees – most emigrants of working age are either digital nomads or those whose work specifically requires them to move. I know a few who have moved to Europe over the past few years – in most cases a vague desire to leave for political or personal reasons was accelerated by circumstances – a job offer, or the opportunity to buy a tempting property. The main obstacle for most older people is getting long stay visas.
For the former two, the strength of the dollar is a very important push-pull factor. The very strong dollar (relative to most major currencies) has made studying and retiring abroad financially attractive for a lot of USasians even to traditionally expensive countries. Again anecdotally, I’ve heard that the recent strengthening trend of the euro has caused some financial stress to US students in Europe. I suspect that the relative post-covid dollar strength has been a major push factor, especially for those wanting to study high cost subjects such as medicine.
There has been a long term trend in many countries where the US has specifically lost its status as the ‘gold star’ destination for emigrants for a wide variety of reasons – Canada and Australia seem to be the current favourites for people from Asia with various European countries featuring for a variety of reasons. Eastern Europe seems to be rising fast due to generally high growth economies and historical ties with certain countries (such as Czechia and Vietnam).
That said, despite everything, the US still represents a huge draw to many for both economic and cultural reasons. Pretty much every US embassy in the world has long queues for visas. Despite Trumps best efforts, for those in highly specialised skills the US still often represents the best option for the highest paid work and wages for those with key skills are far higher than in many other developed countries.
‘That said, despite everything, the US still represents a huge draw to many for both economic and cultural reasons. Pretty much every US embassy in the world has long queues for visas. Despite Trumps best efforts, for those in highly specialised skills the US still often represents the best option for the highest paid work and wages for those with key skills are far higher than in many other developed countries.’
I imagine that is true. But it doesn’t indicate if these individuals are planning a temporary sojourn to the US, or wish to stay permanently. Yves mentions those that she has known who ultimately return to their country of origin.
There can be many reasons why Americans decide to want to move overseas. Those that do can get jarred by how things that they accepted as normal actually weren’t. One story from that YouTube series “First Time You Realized America Really Messed You Up” was a bunch of American expatriates who met up with each other at an outdoor cafe in Berlin. Suddenly in a nearby building site, there was a loud bang of metal hitting the ground and all the Americans at that table dove under the table immediately thinking that it was a shooter and this was how normal people reacted. The Germans at the other tables just looked sadly at the Americans as they got up again and realized that there was no random shooter.
But there might be a more important factor at work. You might have a couple working at professional jobs each but having children just gets further and further out of reach financially while the biological clock ticks away. But then the thought occurs that with their skills, that they could easily move to a country that has decent healthcare and will let them have children without being impoverished for doing so. You can bet that that would be a consideration for younger people.
New inscription for the Statue of Liberty: “please take our huddled masses, longing to be free.”
You can’t blame it all on Trump. He’s just surfin’ the wave.
I knew in the 1990s that I would become an expat but was still anchored here by the need to earn a living. One thing even the interviewees do not address is the considerable stress of relocating abroad.
Sounds like the starting point for a great novel!
After living in Indonesia for 36 years I returned to the United Snakes just in time for Donnie Baby to be elected for his first term.
I am a witness to how much worse general life styles among the non wealthy middle class are here. My son who is finishing college here in the US will leave ASAP. I would too,but reasons.
I recently read an article about Nordic universities succesfull attempts at recruiting foreign – mainly US – talented young researchers. The tone of the article was along the lines of using the opportunity (ie the Trump government) to gain cutting edge researchers.
Not large numbers of course, but as anecdata it is interesting. Reminds me of the sentiment when Russian top researchers where recruited in the 90ies.
A bit of a tangent, wouldn’t population loss be good for the country, in terms of the environment?
Fewer developments, cars on the road, and destruction of animal habitats. It might help end the “rats in a cage” effect. I know I would look forward to fewer people around here (Atlanta.)
I hate to be a Grinch but I am rooting for more population loss!
Me Too.
Same pie,bigger slice.
Seems like, while in the long run the environment might benefit, shorter term it indicates likely economic difficulties, also social. I think those are being briefly addressed here. I’m one who cheers lower human population, BTW.😊
I’ll see your Grinch, and raise with two curmudgeons: I doubt you will see any meaningful decrease during your life- even if you are a spry 18-year-old!
This article was net emigration (versus immigration). I believe the US population is still increasing, net, although the boomers are leaving for a different astral plane or at least simple transmogrification, at an increasing clip. We will see more folks on the margins de from malevolent punishing neglect.
Great read: Countdown, by Alan Weisman, all about demographics, globally. More people more resource depletion and more pain before we round any bends, I believe.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17332183-countdown
Note: I suck at poker, and am also no fun to have at the table! Might be that my sunny disposition and happy outlook is grating…
No the US population is NOT increasing. I addressed that at the top. Births are well below replacement rate. The ONLY source of population growth is immigration.
At the start of the 2000s, a very big name financial institution engaged me to advise them on what trends were important from a consumer marketing perspective. I am not a trends maven; they were asking me to sort signal from all the noise in that field.
One I singled out was demographic growth. The US Census results had just been published. Contrary to what demographers had predicted, the US showed a pretty good sized increase. Demographers had predicted a fall, like in other advanced economies, due to a declining birth rate. The population nevertheless rose due to an unanticipated rise in immigration, largely from Mexico and Central America, plus the birth rate not dropping quite as much as expected due to the shift to more Hispanic households, which have higher birth rates.
i admit that i am just fine with population decline…especially in texas.
i rarely leave the farm…and even more rarely venture more than 60 miles in any direction…but when i do, i am shocked at the number of people.
population of texas has almost tripled in my lifetime.
Tam and i had 2 opportunities to become expats. 1st, before the boys came, a fella offered us a gig managing a palapa restaurant on the beach at his familia’s resort outside manzanita, mexico.,…but we chickened out,lol.
next time, after 911 and all that scary shit, and then after my hip died in 06, we looked into cuba…mainly to get a hip at a reasonable price…but also keeping actually staying as a possibility. they were still actively recruiting organic/regen ag peopl like me.
but then ssi caught me in its tattered net and i finally got a hip…and by then Tam was almost done with school.
so here i will remain. just bury me out back when the time comes…
Similar, here at the North 40. The driving circle is getting smaller; the population increasing daily. Bedroom community of 7k, county 250k. I did secure my permanent residency era 2023…Mexico…❤️🇲🇽💚. As a solo elder, selling my home and heading South has a pull. The pull is…straight into assisted living that is. All about the $$$. All the best out in your neck of the woods!
Me too.
I remember the first time I drove down the eastern seaboard in the US, from Connecticut through NY, NJ, Wilmington, Delaware, etc. Having grown up in rural VT, I was very depressed to see how the entire stretch was just paved over urban sprawl.
But I also remember driving across country from WA sate through Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, etc. and seeing that for very long stretches, there was scant evidence of humanity at all. Not sure why anyone would want to live there on the prairie to begin with unless they are a big fan of tumbleweeds, but nice to know there are actually some large relatively unspoiled regions.
I think that the writing has been on the wall for a long time that, to the extent that you accept that there is an “American Dream” that isn’t just propaganda, the new American dream is clearly to leave. I suspect the main thing suppressing it is basically lack of awareness of the outside world, exacerbated by the particular American social expectation that you have to be well established in life before considering international travel. No widespread youth travel culture here. But if you ever meet any exceptions, they will almost universally have an interest in emigration. It’s less clear how it will play out, but there’s probably also a generational component.
When I first visited NZ in 1981, it was love at first sight. An outdoorsy place full of outdoorsy people, and stuck in time.
The joke was that the 747 pilot would come on the PA and announce ‘that we would soon start our initial descent into Auckland, please set your clocks back 20 years’.
I fell in love with the place toot suite, and my initial forays were when it was a pretty much a cradle to grave socialist country with high import duties on everything, cars in particular.
So, circa 1982, I’d see a 1979 Trans-Am for sale in the Auckland Herald for say $37k ($33k US) when it was a $5k car back in the states, import duties being so high.
If I married a Kiwi gal and planted roots in En Zed, I’d be allowed to bring 1 car from the USA in duty-free, so the plan was to figure out the most portable make and model Yank tank, perhaps have it pre-sold in Auckland, and everything went to perfection planning-wise, except for meeting said Sheila.
A few quibbles:
I visited NZ almost 20 years ago, thought it was like California 50 years before. One of my hosts said, “Well, more like 40.”
I found NZ beautiful and a tiny bit boring compared to my then home of Los Angeles. This attribute appeals to me more and more as time goes on, hence my escape to rural Kentucky…
I will ask my NZ friends, but “Sheila” may be an example of mis-country-ing. Meaning, I believe Sheila refers to an Aussie woman.
Best…H
From my NZed friend: “More Aussie but we relate to it and on occasion is used 😜”
Best…H
Whew, that was close…
Always found Kiwiglish to be pretty straight forward, get into a wreck with your car, so you go to the panel beaters to get it fixed.
Somewhere north of Auckland in a small town, the butcher had a large sign on their front window:
‘Home Kills Processed’
p.s.
Traveled to Aussie until the late 80’s for biz, and loved the people, the way they threw words around-such a rich slanguage!
That said, Oz left a lot to be desired on a scenery front, and i’m the type that’s dead bored after 45 minutes at the beach, and they have quite a few beaches there and some yeah whatever mountains.
NZ is more akin to Polynesia running into Ireland en route to Norway, with a stop in Switzerland along the way.
The people are way different, Aussies are louder funny-while Kiwis tend to be sneaky funny, a bit more cunning coming from their countenance.
We’ve seriously considered retiring to France, despite its dispiriting Americanization. But tout court, it’s still a foreign country and we would be foreigners in our golden years despite our love of their language, culture, food etc. Schlepping to Mexico would be easier even without much Spanish, it seems to me–but if we tried it, it might well feel the same. I guess I feel foreign enough in America, and the homestead’s paid for.
I’ve lived in France for nearly 30 years, I know more about the country and my people than you would ever want to know, and I would not recommend that any American retiree move here unless 1) you have a lot of money and 2) you do not plan to make any real friendships in your new country.
I’m looking at retirement options and will keep my house in the French countryside as a legacy and backstop but will probably take a lease in India or another more attractive Asian country.
Also, to be frank, if I could deal with the politics and insane bureaucracy and expense of the USA, I’d probably retire in Southern California somewhere, while keeping my French digs. I <3 LA.
That’s right, Bugs, when I was young and flexible I could make friends with Frenchies–and maybe after 10 or 20 years I would recognize and begin to understand their steepings and familiarities, the social categories they had been born into of which I was a fortunate outcaste, and so could be a friend to all. I realized I couldn’t become one of them without decades of practice and experience. We don’t have enough decades left to try. Like you, I know a great deal about France–but I don’t know France.
It occurs to me that if AI is about to obliterate jobs of any sort where the core tool is a computer, then forward thinking sorts would want to move away from the USA. Those countries which are technologically slower or less digital would be more resilient in light of the disruption.
Why didn’t you stay in Sydney Yves?
On the surface it looks a lot easier than Thailand.
Same language and alphabet are not small advantages, although obviously, non utilitarian factors come into these things as well.
Another anecdatum – today I heard from my niece – whose father is eligible for Canadian citizenship by descent, but has not taken the steps necessary to get the certificate, unlike myself and our brother. She wonders if she can get Canadian citizenship despite this.
In fact, she can – a law that kicked in on Dec 15, 2025 – Bill C-3 – removed the First Generation Limit on citizenship by descent, and expanded the pool of those eligible to those born by that date. The caveat is that those who are born after that date must show their parent had at least three cumulative years of living in Canada.
She lives in Texas, and her parents are Republicans and probably Christian Nationalists – so it was a little surprising to hear of an interest by her to move to the Great Multicultural North.