Foreign migration boosts Salt Lake metro growth
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The Salt Lake City metro area is growing and it's being driven by foreign migration, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Why it matters: An exodus of city-dwellers rocked many U.S. metros during the COVID-19 pandemic, but some are now clawing back residents (and their productivity, creativity, tax dollars, etc.)
State of play: The Salt Lake metro gained about 19,100 people from international migration last year, per the Census. Meanwhile, around 8,400 residents moved away from the metro.
- Natural change (birth minus deaths) added approximately 7,400 people.
Zoom out: Some metros hit hardest by pandemic population loss — think New York; Washington, D.C. and San Francisco — grew between 2023 and 2024, though some are still down relative to 2020, as seen above.
Between the lines: Cities can thank international migration for this latest population spike.
- "All of the nation's 387 metro areas had positive net international migration between 2023 and 2024, and it accounted for nearly 2.7 million of the total population gain in metro areas," the bureau said in a statement accompanying the new data.
How it works: The bureau bases these estimates on current data for births, deaths and migration, all of which affect the overall population.
What we're watching: How Trump administration policies might affect immigration levels.