Miami-Dade County residents are sick and tired of the rising living costs and traffic.
Photo by David Gales/Adobe Stock
While billionaires are migrating to South Florida in droves to flee tax legislation on the West Coast targeting the ultra-rich, it appears others are doing quite the opposite.
In 2025, Miami-Dade experienced the third-largest population decline among U.S. counties, trailing only Pinellas and Los Angeles counties, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data. Between July 2024 and July 2025, the population fell by 10,115 people, from 2,812,144 to 2,802,029. Miami-Dade is still the seventh-largest county in the U.S. and the largest in Florida.
The census data reveals that Miami-Dade County’s population is shrinking largely due to a decline in international migration — at a time when President Donald Trump is aggressively cracking down on illegal immigration and legal immigration pathways. Overall, the Census Bureau found that population growth slowed in most of the nation’s 3,143 counties and in Washington, D.C., from July 2024 to July 2025.
“The nation’s largest counties like those in the New York metro area are often international migration hubs, gaining a large number of international migrants and losing people that move to other parts of the country via domestic migration,” George Hayward, a Census demographer, said in a press release. “With fewer gains from international migration, these types of countries saw their population growth diminish or even turn into loss.”
Once again, Miami-Dade County saw the highest net domestic migration of all Florida counties, meaning more people left Miami-Dade than moved in between July 2024 and July 2025. More than 72,000 people moved out of Miami-Dade, according to the data. Perhaps residents have had enough of the traffic, affordability issues, and the lack of public transit.
Former Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s famous “How can I help?” tweet from 2020 only helped seemingly recruit the crypto bros, the rich, and the tech world to Miami-Dade, rather than the average person. As people flee Miami-Dade County, several billionaires have either snatched up property or relocated their businesses here. The newcomers include Palantir CEO Alex Karp, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
Top U.S. Counties by Numeric Decline:
Los Angeles County, California: -53,934
Pinellas County, Florida: -11,834
Miami-Dade County, Florida: -10,115
Queens County, New York: -8, 852
Orange County, California: -8,520
San Diego County, California: -5,294
Shelby County, Tennessee: -5,212
Kings County, New York: -4,694
Dallas County, Texas: -2,616
Ventura County, California; Bernalillo County, New Mexico: -2,580
Florida Domestic Migration:
Miami-Dade County: -72,254
Broward County: -29,517
Orange County: -20,271
Hillsborough County: -15,620
Palm Beach County: -11,953
Pinellas County: -9,203
Collier County: -2,337
Monroe County: -1,931
Leon County: -1,279
Seminole County: -1,016