The United States was founded by immigrants and became a place millions around the world aspired to reach. But a month and a half before it marks its 250th anniversary, it is experiencing negative net migration for the first time in more than 50 years — meaning more people are leaving than arriving.
According to a Brookings Institution study, negative migration in 2025 stood at about 250,000 people, with estimates that at least 400,000 Americans voluntarily left the United States. Gallup data shows that nearly one in five Americans wants to leave permanently. Thousands are also giving up their citizenship, moving to Europe and Asia and even seeking better quality of life and quiet in Mexico and Central America.
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Disgust with President Donald Trump is one reason many Americans are leaving the country
(Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
U.S. government institutions do not collect comprehensive statistics on the number of citizens leaving, but data on residency permits, overseas home purchases, university enrollment and other indicators from more than 50 countries show that Americans are voting with their feet at an unprecedented rate. Millions are studying, working remotely or spending retirement abroad. For some Americans, it turns out, the new American dream is no longer living in their homeland.
The reasons vary. President Donald Trump is central to them, but he is not the only reason. Negative migration began years ago, driven by the expansion of remote work, worsening cost of living and an appetite for a foreign lifestyle that increasingly seems within reach, especially in Europe. About 68% of Americans considering leaving cite soaring housing prices, living costs and the inability to achieve economic prosperity as major reasons.
“If you can’t achieve in the United States what was once called the ‘American dream,’ then why stay here?” Ellen Bridges of Missouri told CBS. “There is a disgraceful president, health insurance that costs more than a salary and a Supreme Court that decided my body does not belong to me. My husband and I are now looking at options, and by the end of the year we will leave.”
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In Lisbon, Portugal, for example, so many Americans are buying apartments that English is heard in the streets almost as often as Portuguese. One in 15 residents of Dublin’s trendy Grand Canal Dock district was born in the United States. Large numbers of Americans have also moved to Bali, Indonesia, as well as Colombia and Thailand, where they work remotely, earn U.S.-level salaries and can use their money in ways they never dreamed of in America.
More than 100,000 young American students are studying at affordable universities overseas, while across the border in Mexico, new retirement homes are opening daily for older Americans seeking cheaper care.
There is no unified data system accurately tracking the 4 million to 9 million Americans already living outside the United States. The U.S. State Department estimated that 1.6 million Americans lived in Mexico in 2022, a figure that has likely grown since the COVID pandemic despite cartel violence there. More than 250,000 Americans live in Canada, not including dual citizens or the many Americans who cross the border back and forth daily as part of their routine lives. More than 325,000 Americans live in Britain, and around 1.5 million live across Europe.
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About 68% of Americans considering leaving cite soaring housing prices, living costs and inability to achieve economic prosperity as reasons
(Photo: Reuters)
Most Americans leaving are immigrants who have decided they are better off moving somewhere they will not be arbitrarily stopped in the street, or liberal academics and people in prestigious professions, some of whom can work remotely and keep American incomes while living in cheaper, quieter countries. Notably, the new American emigrant is increasingly likely to leave with children and put down roots elsewhere.
“Here, you don’t think about how your 5-year-old child goes to kindergarten and practices drills in case someone comes in with a gun,” said Chris Ford, 41, a real estate investor who moved to Berlin and runs a baseball league for American children. “Salaries are higher in the United States,” Ford said, “but quality of life is higher in Europe.”
And because this is America, some are already profiting from the trend. More and more companies are offering relocation tours for Americans, especially in Mexico. Jen Barnett, co-founder of one such company, said 600 Americans determined to leave attended a conference she held this month in San Diego. The company’s goal, she said, is “to move 1 million Americans to Mexico.” Of those at the conference, 89% said they wanted to leave the United States for political reasons.
“In the past, Americans who left were adventurers and people with degrees,” said Barnett, an Alabama native who moved to Mexico. “Now they are ordinary people, like me.”
First published: 10:05, 05.19.26