Driver’s license data also shows that around 120,000 people left Washington in 2024, an 84% increase from just before the pandemic, writes columnist Gene Balk.
Driver’s license data also shows that around 120,000 people left Washington in 2024, an 84% increase from just before the pandemic, writes columnist Gene Balk.
A lot fewer people moved to Washington from other states last year than the year before the pandemic started, new driver’s license data shows. But the number moving to Washington from other countries surged.
Data from the Washington Department of Licensing shows there were around 161,000 driver’s licenses issued to new Washington residents in 2024. That’s not too far off from 2019, when the total was about 164,000.
But a closer look at the data shows a shift in where those new drivers came from. There was a significant drop in the number of new drivers from other states, but that decline was mostly offset by a large increase in the number moving here from other countries.
In 2019, new driver’s licenses issued to people moving to Washington from other states totaled nearly 154,000. In 2024, the total was just 138,000, down about 10%.
But the number of new licenses to people from other countries surged. In 2019, there were only about 10,000 issued. Last year, the total was nearly 23,000, a 126% increase.
In a 2022 column, I wrote about U.S. Census Bureau data showing a drop in movers to Washington from within the U.S., and an increase in international migration to the state. The driver’s license data seems to confirm what the census data showed.
Comparing 2019 with 2024, there was a decline in new driver’s licenses from 42 states, while only seven saw an increase.
The biggest numeric drop was from the state that consistently sends us the most new residents — California. In 2019, nearly 35,000 driver’s licenses were issued to movers from the Golden State. Last year, the number was less than 28,000. That’s a decline of more than 7,000, or about 20%.
Oregon typically sends us the second-largest number of new drivers each year, and Oregon had the second-largest numeric decline — about 1,100 fewer in 2024 than 2019.
The number of new licenses was down by more than 500 for four other states: Alaska, Illinois, Virginia and Michigan.
But there are some states sending more folks our way, and three in the Sunbelt led the way: Texas, Florida and Arizona.
In particular, the number of driver’s licenses issued to people moving to Washington from Texas surged. In 2019, there were around 9,500. Last year, the total exceeded 11,000, an increase of more than 1,500, or 16%.
More than 7,000 driver’s licenses were issued to new Washington residents from Florida, up by around 600 or 9%. Around 6,800 were issued to movers from Arizona, up around 300, or 5%.
The data for driver’s licenses issued to people moving from outside the U.S. only breaks out one country, Canada. The number of new licenses to movers from Canada totaled nearly 2,800 last year, up by almost 1,300 from 2019, an 83% jump. For all other countries, the total was around 22,000, an increase of 10,500, or 133%.
The increase in the total number of driver’s licenses issued to people from other countries started in 2022, the data shows. Throughout the 2010s, the number of such licenses typically totaled a little over 1,000 per month. But those numbers began to increase in early 2022. More recently, the typical monthly total is closer to 2,000.
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