Who’s Moving to the Tri-Cities?

New Tri-Cities residents typically come from elsewhere in Washington state, and when they come from out of state, it’s usually other cities and counties in the western U.S.

Still, as I mentioned in yesterday’s article, most Tri-Citians make local moves. When Benton County residents move, their No. 1 destination is Franklin County, and the vice versa is also true.

But what does inbound migration look like when you remove those moves from the equation and take a look at where people are coming from when they relocate to the Tri-Cities as a whole — both Benton and Franklin counties? Again, as I did in yesterday’s article, I’m using publicly available IRS tax filing data for 2022-2023, the most recent time period available. Comparing the addresses (counties) that U.S. homeowners use to file taxes serves as a pretty solid proxy for migration patterns. Let’s take a look at the numbers.

Where New Tri-Citians Come From

According to the IRS data, a total of 16,271 people moved to Benton and Franklin counties between 2022 and 2023. A little more than two-thirds (68%) of that group moved to Benton County.

That number includes local moves between Benton County and Franklin County. Those make up about 34% of all inbound moves to the two counties. That leaves about 66% of moves that involved people coming from counties other than Benton or Franklin. Here are the top 10 counties that sent people to Benton and Franklin, not including those two counties:

As you can see, a lot of the inbound relocation comes from counties on the east side of the state. And only one, Umatilla, is outside Washington.

So let’s dig a little further and see what counties outside the state are sending the most new residents to the Tri-Cities area. Here’s the top 10:

All 10 are in the western U.S., which may or may not be surprising to you. Coming just a bit short of making the top 10 are a few more California counties (Santa Clara, Riverside, San Bernardino), Douglas and Deschutes in Oregon, as well as Utah County and Canyon County (in Idaho). I appreciate seeing Deschutes on the list, even if it’s not in the top 10, since I recently had the pleasure of helping great clients move here from Bend.

So that gives you a snapshot of who’s moving to the Tri-Cities. First and foremost, it’s usually other Tri-Citians moving somewhere in Benton or Franklin Counties. But when you remove local moves, most Tri-Cities newcomers are coming from somewhere else in state. And when they’re not from Washington, they’re most often from one of the large counties in the western U.S.

-Cari

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