WASHINGTON — A slowdown in immigration contributed to a year over year drop in US population growth in 2025, according to new estimates released Tuesday by the US Census Bureau.
The nation’s population reached 341.8 million people in 2025, with growth of 0.5 percent. That marked a sharp decline from nearly 1 percent growth in 2024, which had been the highest rate since 2001 and was driven largely by immigration. Census estimates for 2024 put the US population at 340 million.
Immigration increased by 1.3 million people in 2025, down from an increase of 2.8 million the year before. The census report did not distinguish between legal and illegal immigration.
The drop came after a period of unusually strong growth. In 2024, net international migration accounted for 84 percent of the nation’s 3.3 million person population increase from the prior year. That jump was partly tied to a new census counting method that included people admitted for humanitarian reasons.
IN FLIGHT – JANUARY 22: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on board Air Force One while flying in between Ireland and Washington as he returns from the World Economic Forum on January 22, 2026. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Over the past 125 years, the lowest US population growth rate occurred in 2021, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when the population grew by just 0.16 percent, or 522,000 people. Immigration that year increased by only 376,000 people because of travel restrictions. Before that, the slowest growth was just under 0.5 percent in 1919 during the Spanish flu.
The latest estimates cover population change from July 2024 to July 2025, spanning the end of President Joe Biden’s administration and the first half year after President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025. Immigration was a central issue in Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, which focused heavily on a surge of migrants at the southern border.
Researchers say the data reflect the early stages of immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. The figures include the beginning of enforcement surges in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, but do not capture later actions in cities such as Chicago, New Orleans, Memphis, Tennessee, and Minneapolis, Minnesota.
“They do reflect recent trends we have seen in out-migration, where the numbers of people coming in is down and the numbers going out is up,” Eric Jensen, a senior research scientist at the Census Bureau, said last week.
FILE – U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino walks through a Target store Jan. 11, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Adam Gray, File)
Unlike the once a decade census, which determines congressional representation, Electoral College votes, and the distribution of about $2.8 trillion in annual federal funding, population estimates are produced using government records and internal Census Bureau data.
The release of the 2025 estimates was delayed by last fall’s federal government shutdown. It also comes amid staffing challenges at the Census Bureau, which lost about 15 percent of its workforce last year through buyouts and layoffs tied to cost cutting efforts by the White House and its Department of Government Efficiency.
Concerns have also been raised about political influence at federal statistical agencies following other actions by the Trump administration. Still, Brookings Institution demographer William Frey said the census figures appear reliable.
“So I have no reason to doubt the numbers that come out,” Frey said.
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