There was a time when moving to New Jersey meant you had made it. Good schools, great neighborhoods, close to everything. People came here. They stayed. They raised families and put down roots.
That story is getting harder to tell in 2026.
New numbers confirm what a lot of us have been quietly watching happen for years — New Jersey is losing people, and the pace isn’t slowing down. According to newly released 2025 migration data, New Jersey ranked #7 nationally for net out-migration per capita, losing 16,283 more residents than it gained last year. While overall U.S. moving activity actually slowed down, the Garden State kept going. And according to the United Van Lines National Movers Study, New Jersey ranked #1 in outbound household moves — with roughly 62% of all moves out of the state headed somewhere else entirely.
Here’s the number that should stop you cold: since 2020, a net 192,209 New Jersey residents have left for other states. That’s not a blip. That’s a trend with legs — and a price tag attached to every single one of those stories.
The towns losing the most people
The hardest hit areas tell two very different stories. The big population losses by raw numbers are concentrated in the Hudson County corridor. Jersey City leads the entire state in total residents lost — remarkable for a city that was once one of the fastest-growing in the entire Northeast. Newark follows close behind, and not by a small margin. Union City, North Bergen, and Bayonne round out the top five, once-thriving Hudson County anchors now watching more people pack up than settle in.
But when you flip to percentage decline, the picture gets even more striking. Maurice River Township in Cumberland County led all NJ municipalities with a staggering 17.4% loss — a gut punch for a small South Jersey community that’s been bleeding population for decades. Ewing Township and Highlands Borough are close behind, followed by Andover and Kearny — geographically scattered towns with nothing in common except the same painful trend.
The shift is suburban too. While Salem County has seen a 5.11% population decline and Cape May County is down 4.79%, Ocean County has actually grown 4.4% — meaning people aren’t just leaving New Jersey, they’re rearranging themselves within it, moving outward, away from density and toward whatever feels more manageable.
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On The Money NerdWallet Summer Moves | AP
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Where are they going?
Florida, obviously. No state income tax, warm weather, and a cost of living that makes New Jersey feel like a bad dream. But the destinations have spread out considerably. The most popular landing spots for former New Jerseyans now include Pennsylvania for those who want more space at a lower price while staying in the Northeast, and the Carolinas, Texas, and Tennessee for people who want a complete reset — different jobs, different tax climate, different chapter entirely.
The Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington metro, which covers much of western South Jersey, recorded a net loss of 8 residents per 10,000 in 2025. One genuine bright spot: the Atlantic City–Hammonton metro actually posted light gains, adding 8 residents per 10,000, suggesting smaller coastal communities may be quietly absorbing some spillover from the bigger metros.
Why they’re really leaving
Ask anyone who’s packed up and gone and they’ll tell you in the same order every time: property taxes, housing costs, and the feeling that no matter how hard you work here, you can never quite get ahead. High housing costs and tax rates remain the primary drivers for Garden State departures, according to migration research. Remote work removed the last anchor keeping many people tethered to a high-cost zip code — and once that reason to stay disappeared, the math on New Jersey got a lot harder to justify.
But this isn’t just an economic story. It’s a deeply personal one. These are neighbors, old friends, family members who stared at the numbers long enough and made a painful decision. In a state built on hustle, heart, and the best pizza in the world — that’s the kind of trend that should keep every single one of our elected officials up at night.
For now, the moving trucks keep rolling. And too many of them are pointed in the same direction — out.
LOOK: Here’s where people in every state are moving to most
Stacker analyzed the Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey data to determine the three most popular destinations for people moving out of each state.
Gallery Credit: Amanda Silvestri
