Top 10 States Where Retirees Moved in 2025

Over the 10 years ending in 2024, housing costs increased by 132 percent in Florida, the second-largest spike among states (after Idaho), reports Construction Coverage, a building and real estate research company. Increasingly frequent extreme weather events and rising reconstruction costs have made Florida the most expensive state for homeowners insurance, according to an April 2025 report from the nonprofit Consumer Federation of America.

Premiums there rose more between 2021 and 2024, in absolute dollars, than in any other state, with average annual premiums of $9,462, the study found. More than 20 insurers have stopped writing new homeowners policies in Florida or pulled out of the market entirely.

“It’s difficult to get the homeowners insurance you need. There have been hurricanes and tropical storms. Utilities, food and homeowners association fees are also on the rise,” Marquit says. “And, of course, you’ve got overdevelopment, traffic congestion and overloaded health care services.”

These factors have helped change the flow of new arrivals, says Nicole Ramer, a certified senior move manager and co-owner of Organized Haven, a relocation services company in central Florida.

“I hadn’t really seen a lot of people moving out of Florida until the last couple of years,” she says.

There’s even a term for people like Whitney who moved to Florida to escape Northern winters but ended up resettling somewhere in the middle, like the Carolinas. BEBR Director Christopher McCarty says they’re called “halfbacks.”

Florida fights back

Florida has taken steps to curb soaring insurance costs, enacting legal reforms aimed at coaxing back private insurers and reducing premiums charged by the state-backed provider, Citizens Property Insurance Corp. Seventeen private insurance companies have entered the market in recent years, according to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.

Already considered tax-friendly for its lack of an income tax, Florida may roll back property taxes under a constitutional amendment, passed in February by the state House and pending before the Senate, that would phase out real estate levies except those that fund schools.

For now, nearby states that offer warm weather, alluring coasts and a lower cost of living are benefiting from the perception that Florida has become harder to afford. Of the approximately 14,000 65-plus adults who moved to South Carolina last year, for example, more than 1 in 8 were Florida transplants.

New arrivals from neighboring Georgia and North Carolina also contributed to the Palmetto State leading the U.S. in a net gain of retirement-age migrants, with 5,427 more people ages 65-plus moving into South Carolina than moving out.

When Wanda Eastham and her husband were weighing a retirement move from Rhode Island, they considered Florida. But on a scouting trip there, “both of us said, ‘No, absolutely not,’  ” she recalls. “It was crowded. There was something about it that just didn’t appeal to either one of us.”

On the way back, divine intervention struck. While driving through South Carolina, they spotted a church under construction. Eastham, a potter who crafts chalices for churches as a sideline, made a deal to sell some to the local priest. They saw that as a sign to buy a piece of property on Hilton Head and build a house. After her husband died in 2018, she moved to a nearby retirement community called Holiday Indigo Pines.

Now 85, Eastham can see for herself what the relocation figures reflect. “Everybody wants to be on Hilton Head,” she says. “There are people from everywhere.”

That has its downsides, too, says her partner, Wil Mozingo, 88, who moved with his late wife to South Carolina from Virginia to be closer to a daughter and met Eastham at Holiday Indigo Pines. “It’s getting crowded down here. We’re commenting constantly about where in the heck did this traffic come from.”

What’s happening in Vegas

Texas, which has several major medical centers and no state income tax, ranked second as a draw for retirees, with 24,079 inbound moves, and second in net gain (5,156). More than 2,000 of the new arrivals came from Florida, but the biggest state of origin for people moving to Texas was California (nearly 2,900).

Houston and San Antonio ranked among the top 10 cities for retiree moves, but the most popular urban destination was Las Vegas, which attracted 7,854 new 65-plus residents, edging out Tucson, Arizona (7,627).

Marquit says the weather is a major reason Southwestern cities like Las Vegas, Tucson and Phoenix (No. 10) are holding their own as retiree draws: “You’ve got that dry, warm year-round climate that’s not humid like in Florida.”

There’s also no state income tax in Nevada, and the Las Vegas area is home to a growing number of affordable active adult communities, Marquit says. The region boasts outdoor destinations such as Lake Mead and Red Rock Canyon to draw active adults and a growing major sports presence with the NHL’s Golden Knights, the NFL’s Raiders and the WNBA’s Aces. (Major League Baseball’s Athletics are due to arrive in 2028.)

While a few Northern cities, such as Chicago and Minneapolis, ranked high as urban draws for older adults, states with colder weather and higher taxes and housing costs predictably saw the largest exodus. California had the biggest net loss of age 65-plus residents, followed by New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

New York has the nation’s second-highest tax burden (after Hawai‘i), according to personal finance site WalletHub, with California fourth and Illinois seventh. Real estate company Redfin rates California as the most expensive place to buy a house, with New York at No. 6 (Florida is No. 21).

Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee — warm-weather states that are also among the most affordable, according to the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center — were also among the 10 states that HireAHelper found had the biggest net gain of 65-plus migrants.

“It’s about affordability in general,” says Marquit. “It’s difficult, especially if you’re a retiree and you’re on a fixed income, to maintain the right balance in a high-cost-of-living state. And if you own your home, you can sell it for quite a lot and have a lot more options. So people are moving out.”