San Antonio's population boom is driven by out-of-state movers
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The San Antonio area's population is still booming, and that's largely due to people moving here from other states, the U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday.
Why it matters: Newcomers continue to shape our region, affecting everything from our housing and water supplies to the local economy.
By the numbers: The San Antonio-New Braunfels metro area grew by nearly 205,000 people from April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2024, per the new data.
- Of those, more than 121,000 people (59%) migrated here from other states.
- Nearly 41,000 people moved internationally to come to the area.
- Another 41,000 are attributed to natural population growth — meaning we had that many more births than deaths in the area.
Our metro is now home to nearly 2.8 million people, per the Census Bureau — up from nearly 2.6 million four years earlier.
Zoom out: Texas is growing slower than it has in recent years, but major metros continue to make the list for top-performing growth across the country.
- Counties outside Dallas and Houston — Kaufman, Liberty and Montgomery — placed second, sixth and seventh, respectively, for percent growth in population from July 2023 to July 2024.
- Caldwell County in Central Texas, home to Lockhart, ranked ninth in the nation for its 4.6% population growth in that time.
The intrigue: San Antonio area counties didn't make the top 10 this time around, for percent or numeric growth.
The big picture: America's metros are now growing faster than the country overall, and nationally, that's largely driven by foreign immigration.
What they're saying: "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.