When Tri-Citians Move, Where Do We Go? Across the River, Usually

When you think of people moving out of the Tri-Cities, it’s easy to assume that everyone’s heading at least to the west side of Washington — and more likely getting completely out of the state.

But the reality is far different!

Using shifts in IRS tax return filings as a proxy*, the reality is that most Tri-Cities movers are just going across the river. Yes, it’s true. Let’s take a look at the numbers.

Tri-Citians Moving to the Tri-Cities (area)

When people move out of Benton County, their No. 1 destination is Franklin County. And the vice versa is true, too: When people move out of Franklin County, their top destination is Benton County.

Between the 2022 and 2023 tax years, the IRS says

• 9,981 people moved out of Benton County, 2,583 of whom moved to Franklin County (26%)
• 5,349 moved out of Franklin County, 2,895 of whom moved to Benton County (54%)

Maybe it’s a bit obvious that most moves are fairly local. So let’s remove each county from the other’s list and see where people move when they go further than across the river.

Where Tri-Citians Move When It’s Not the Tri-Cities

When we combine Benton and Franklin counties, the story gets a bit more interesting.

According to the IRS, a total of 15,330 people moved out of the two counties from 2022 to 2023. A majority of those moves (63%) were in-state, and the other 37% were people leaving Washington.

Here are the top ten counties, not including Benton & Franklin, where Benton and Franklin county residents moved:

Coming in at No. 7, Maricopa County in Arizona — where Phoenix is located — is the most popular destination outside the Pacific Northwest when locals move away.

And that’s a good lead-in to listing where Tri-Cities area residents move when they go out of state. Here are the top 10 counties outside Washington where Benton and Franklin county residents moved to between 2022 and 2023:

In a future post, I’ll take a look at who’s moving into the Tri-Cities area.

For now, this data offers a good snapshot of where locals move when they say goodbye to their Tri-Cities home. Reality is, most are only moving across the river!

-Cari

(*The IRS tracks federal tax return filings, of course, and they know your home address when you file. So if John Doe files one year in Benton County, then files the next year from Franklin County, that’s a pretty good proxy for domestic migration. It’s not perfect, though, because by some estimates, about 82% of adults who could file a federal tax return do. The other “issue” with the IRS data is the delay that I mentioned above.)

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