Montana’s growth rate slowed slightly between 2023 and 2024, according to population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau last week.
Montana gained a net 5,931 residents between July 2023 and July 2024, down from the 9,934 residents the state gained in the prior year.
This is the second year Montana’s growth rate has slowed after spiking dramatically in the two years following the Covid-19 pandemic, when thousands flocked to the state in search of wide-open spaces and lax pandemic protocols. Montana added an estimated 19,155 residents in 2021 and 16,512 residents in 2022, a population influx that pushed up housing prices and outpaced supply in the Flathead Valley.
Nearly all of the state’s net population gain this year came from in-migration, rather than in-state births. Montana between 2023 and 2024 gained 5,410 residents who moved from other U.S. states and 506 residents who moved from other countries. The natural population change, or the net number of in-state births versus deaths, was only 12.
Between April 2020 and July 2024, Montana’s population increased by 53,017, a change that was driven largely by in-migration. The state saw a natural change (births versus deaths) of -3,064 and a net migration of 56,118. Of those who migrated into Montana since April 2020, 53,496 came from other U.S. states and 2,622 came from abroad.
According to the newly released Census data, the U.S. population grew by nearly 1% between 2023 and 2024, marking the fastest annual population growth in the country since 2001. The country’s population growth was driven primarily by net international immigration, or individuals from other countries moving into the U.S. International immigration accounted for 84% of the nation’s 3.3 million-resident increase between 2023 and 2024.
According to data from the Congressional Budget Office and reported by the New York Times, annual net migration averaged 2.4 million people from 2021 to 2023, marking the largest immigration boom in U.S. history.
“An annual growth rate of 1.0% is higher than what we’ve seen over recent years but well within historical norms,” Kristie Wilder, a demographer in the Census Bureau’s Population Division, said in a press release on Dec. 19. “What stands out is the diminishing role of natural increase over the last five years, as net international migration has become the primary driver of the nation’s growth.”
The South remained America’s fastest growing region, gaining nearly 1.8 million residents between 2023 and 2024, a change of 1.4%. The West followed the South in population growth, gaining around 688,000 residents with a growth rate of 0.9%. Texas, Florida, California, North Carolina and New York gained the highest number of residents, in that order. The District of Columbia, Florida, Texas, Utah and South Carolina had the highest growth percentages.
Despite Montana’s slowing growth rate, the state is continuing to contend with the influx of new residents it has received since 2020. According to a 2022 community needs assessment, the city of Whitefish will need to construct 1,310 units of housing by 2030 to address the current housing shortfall and account for future growth.