Americans are reportedly flocking to one Central Texas city more than anywhere else in the country. Austin has once again been crowned America’s No. 1 boomtown by LendingTree.
The online financial marketplace highlighted top cities where Americans are moving, building and starting businesses right now, according to the new report. Texas’ capital city took the top spot, marking the third consecutive year that Austin held the No. 1 spot in Lending Tree’s annual analysis.
Lending Tree ranked the country’s largest metros based on three categories: people and housing, work and earnings, and business and economy. Austin boasted the highest housing unit growth (3.4%) and the largest increase in new business applications (11.3%).
The major Central Texas metro also ranked third for the share of residents who relocated there from another county, state or country (17.5%) and came in fifth overall for population growth (3.1%). Earlier this year, the City of Austin marked a huge population milestone by surpassing more than one million residents for the first time in its 187-year history.
The U.S. Census Bureau from 2025 showed that Austin’s population hit the seven-figure mark in 2025 with 1,002,632 residents, according to a city news release. Austin’s steady growth has made it the 12th most populous city in the United States.
Matt Schulz, LendingTree’s chief consumer finance analyst and author of “Ask Questions, Save Money, Make More: How to Take Control of Your Financial Life,” says Austin’s growth tracks with his personal observations of his hometown.
“As someone from Austin, none of this surprises me,” Schulz said. “The city has been attracting people from all over the country for years. When you have that many new people moving in, there’s going to be demand for just about everything. That creates a lot of opportunities for entrepreneurs.”
Southern cities also claimed Lending Tree’s top 10 highest-ranked metros including Austin, Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C. — along with Tampa, Jacksonville and Orlando in Florida — plus Houston and Nashville, Tennessee. Lending Tree’s only two top-10 metros outside the South were Seattle and Phoenix.
Aside from Austin, four other Texas metros ranked among the nation’s top 15: Houston (No. 9), Dallas (No. 11) and San Antonio (No. 13). To read the full report, visit Lending Tree’s website.