Washington's moves to and from each state, 2021-22 and 2022-23

What this dataset measures

Built to check the claim, posted November 2, 2026 by the Yes on Initiative 645 campaign, that households leaving Washington since 2021 have earned more on average than households moving in. Six comparison states (neighbors, the biggest destinations and California) and all-state rankings test whether Washington's pattern is unusual.

Geography

Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Texas, Florida, Arizona, United States (all states, rankings)

Unit of observation

State and filing-year pair

Update cadence

Annual, when IRS publishes a new migration year

Curator

FactHub Research Team

Curated data tables

Washington's moves to and from each state, 2021-22 and 2022-23

One row per partner state and year, sorted by returns leaving Washington. IRS suppresses cells under 10 returns (shown as -1 in its files); those rows have empty averages here.

Unit of observation: Partner state and filing-year pair

fh-wa-partner-states.csv text/csv · 5.3 KB (5,388 bytes)

All 100 rows 9 columns Download the file

All 100 rows

filing_years	state	left_wa_returns returns	left_wa_agi_thousands thousands of dollars	came_to_wa_returns returns	came_to_wa_agi_thousands thousands of dollars	avg_agi_leaving dollars	avg_agi_arriving dollars	net_agi_to_wa_thousands thousands of dollars
2021-22	CA	18275	2972701	27550	3854988	162665	139927	882287
2021-22	OR	12358	999758	15880	1611384	80900	101473	611626
2021-22	TX	11775	1436506	8801	872113	121996	99092	-564393
2021-22	AZ	9204	1068058	5554	592338	116043	106651	-475720
2021-22	ID	6878	673363	5154	339278	97901	65828	-334085
2021-22	FL	6778	1115362	4761	388204	164556	81538	-727158
2021-22	CO	3879	533713	4149	364142	137590	87766	-169571
2021-22	NY	3346	462125	3641	394496	138113	108348	-67629
2021-22	MT	3040	349113	1760	109189	114840	62039	-239924
2021-22	NV	3004	620022	2792	237969	206399	85232	-382053
2021-22	NC	2721	273230	2287	189634	100415	82918	-83596
2021-22	GA	2613	254040	2285	193531	97222	84696	-60509
2021-22	VA	2564	274386	2794	283741	107015	101554	9355
2021-22	TN	2532	303929	1387	107544	120035	77537	-196385
2021-22	UT	2255	209013	2463	209716	92689	85147	703
2021-22	IL	2132	228038	2981	452895	106960	151927	224857
2021-22	HI	1893	207751	2497	188035	109747	75304	-19716
2021-22	SC	1700	149166	1158	74138	87745	64022	-75028
2021-22	OH	1575	138363	1765	152417	87850	86355	14054
2021-22	MO	1496	126157	1358	115018	84330	84697	-11139
2021-22	PA	1424	140557	1907	191621	98706	100483	51064
2021-22	MN	1423	148612	1588	132386	104436	83366	-16226
2021-22	MI	1399	138305	1762	151013	98860	85705	12708
2021-22	AK	1365	103542	1720	129430	75855	75250	25888
2021-22	MA	1288	179492	2059	257583	139357	125101	78091
2021-22	OK	1284	86398	914	113805	67288	124513	27407
2021-22	WI	1130	105977	1160	90709	93785	78197	-15268
2021-22	MD	1061	108453	1469	150965	102218	102767	42512
2021-22	NM	997	91110	913	69316	91384	75921	-21794
2021-22	NJ	961	146647	1666	225990	152598	135648	79343
2021-22	IN	957	74962	1142	88804	78330	77762	13842
2021-22	AL	925	78258	657	42982	84603	65422	-35276
2021-22	KS	861	71919	905	74058	83530	81832	2139
2021-22	KY	779	57406	558	36023	73692	64557	-21383
2021-22	AR	718	57611	553	41029	80238	74193	-16582
2021-22	IA	614	43225	663	45816	70399	69104	2591
2021-22	LA	609	40429	765	48653	66386	63599	8224
2021-22	SD	605	64843	341	24253	107179	71123	-40590
2021-22	WY	602	171655	356	24734	285141	69478	-146921
2021-22	CT	471	52972	683	74959	112467	109750	21987
2021-22	NE	470	42535	496	32929	90500	66389	-9606
2021-22	DC	402	50506	447	51773	125637	115823	1267
2021-22	ND	398	21925	343	21193	55088	61787	-732
2021-22	ME	390	33517	281	19119	85941	68039	-14398
2021-22	MS	378	25765	332	16496	68161	49687	-9269
2021-22	NH	303	33474	307	27342	110475	89062	-6132
2021-22	VT	190	16182	164	10455	85168	63750	-5727
2021-22	WV	162	11241	148	9353	69389	63196	-1888
2021-22	RI	161	18421	188	14793	114416	78686	-3628
2021-22	DE	118	11715	164	15556	99280	94854	3841
2022-23	CA	17871	2077271	24625	2745848	116237	111507	668577
2022-23	OR	12212	888892	15339	1376362	72788	89730	487470
2022-23	TX	9863	1177650	9307	859763	119401	92378	-317887
2022-23	AZ	8011	899193	5803	514379	112245	88640	-384814
2022-23	ID	6151	524598	5146	316568	85287	61517	-208030
2022-23	FL	5661	745422	5333	433515	131677	81289	-311907
2022-23	NY	3513	418947	3649	394403	119256	108085	-24544
2022-23	CO	3480	335071	3935	340922	96285	86638	5851
2022-23	NV	2580	300285	2609	184960	116390	70893	-115325
2022-23	VA	2575	256177	2660	255468	99486	96041	-709
2022-23	MT	2530	219827	1936	122371	86888	63208	-97456
2022-23	NC	2464	245507	2371	188086	99638	79328	-57421
2022-23	GA	2278	208824	2374	187906	91670	79152	-20918
2022-23	IL	2158	207439	2734	281097	96126	102815	73658
2022-23	UT	2147	192328	2362	177038	89580	74953	-15290
2022-23	TN	1956	179797	1371	105971	91921	77295	-73826
2022-23	HI	1761	179651	2451	183104	102016	74706	3453
2022-23	SC	1443	139236	1040	79808	96491	76738	-59428
2022-23	OH	1434	116477	1779	141828	81225	79723	25351
2022-23	MO	1383	105613	1372	103136	76365	75172	-2477
2022-23	PA	1374	126170	1888	173855	91827	92084	47685
2022-23	MI	1328	122985	1710	138859	92609	81204	15874
2022-23	MN	1315	115212	1536	144485	87614	94066	29273
2022-23	AK	1310	91260	1600	122661	69664	76663	31401
2022-23	MA	1308	157051	1817	202482	120070	111438	45431
2022-23	MD	1109	118351	1424	132767	106719	93235	14416
2022-23	WI	1089	86573	1137	89743	79498	78930	3170
2022-23	OK	1050	68366	989	64276	65110	64991	-4090
2022-23	NJ	1007	132736	1494	190019	131813	127188	57283
2022-23	NM	919	68100	946	69283	74102	73238	1183
2022-23	IN	894	61967	1159	86190	69314	74366	24223
2022-23	AL	814	61784	686	43927	75902	64034	-17857
2022-23	KS	778	61568	899	65291	79136	72626	3723
2022-23	KY	677	44968	577	37171	66422	64421	-7797
2022-23	AR	615	48472	513	31636	78816	61669	-16836
2022-23	IA	605	37669	617	40295	62263	65308	2626
2022-23	LA	557	40776	755	48824	73206	64668	8048
2022-23	DC	447	50372	395	47870	112689	121190	-2502
2022-23	WY	445	69120	373	22613	155326	60625	-46507
2022-23	CT	445	43617	650	50720	98016	78031	7103
2022-23	SD	444	42379	378	25276	95448	66868	-17103
2022-23	NE	438	30791	502	31927	70299	63600	1136
2022-23	ND	365	20713	331	19691	56748	59489	-1022
2022-23	MS	344	21865	324	17327	63561	53478	-4538
2022-23	ME	302	24943	301	17758	82593	58997	-7185
2022-23	NH	260	30543	280	23993	117473	85689	-6550
2022-23	RI	186	19881	209	17032	106887	81493	-2849
2022-23	VT	181	12612	201	12639	69680	62881	27
2022-23	WV	164	10273	159	10006	62640	62931	-267
2022-23	DE	104	8915	138	11947	85721	86572	3032

9 field definitions

Field	Type	Meaning	Units	Value type
filing_years	string	IRS filing-year pair.	—	observed
state	string	Partner state postal code.	—	observed
left_wa_returns	integer	Returns that moved from Washington to this state.	returns	observed
left_wa_agi_thousands	integer	Their year-2 AGI.	thousands of dollars	observed
came_to_wa_returns	integer	Returns that moved from this state to Washington; -1 if IRS suppressed it.	returns	observed
came_to_wa_agi_thousands	integer	Their year-2 AGI; -1 if suppressed.	thousands of dollars	observed
avg_agi_leaving	integer	Average AGI of returns leaving Washington for this state.	dollars	derived
avg_agi_arriving	integer	Average AGI of returns arriving from this state; empty if suppressed.	dollars	derived
net_agi_to_wa_thousands	integer	Arriving AGI minus leaving AGI; empty if either is suppressed.	thousands of dollars	derived

Supporting files

Source snapshots, manifests, quality reports, documentation, and other materials used to produce or review this release.

• fh-analysis-results.json Documentation · application/json · 24.9 KB (25,481 bytes)

  Saved-analysis results written by the build script.

• fh-build-migration-dataset.js Transformation manifest · text/javascript · 8 KB (8,170 bytes)

  Node.js script that reads the IRS files and writes every table and result here.

Sources

1. Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income (SOI): U.S. Population Migration Data Index of every migration year. State-to-state files used: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/stateinflowYYYY.csv and stateoutflowYYYY.csv for YYYY = 1112 through 2223 (rows for each state's 'Total Migration-US' and for Washington's partner states).

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Allowed; IRS data are U.S. government works.

   Reliability: Government. Built by IRS from address changes on the full population of individual income tax returns filed in two consecutive years. IRS has no stake in Washington's tax debate.

2. IRS SOI Tax Stats, Migration Data 2022-2023 Release page for the latest year, linking stateinflow2223.csv, stateoutflow2223.csv and the gross migration file 2223inmigall.csv.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Allowed.

   Reliability: Government. Official IRS release page. The 2023-24 files were not published as of November 3, 2026 (stateinflow2324.csv returned HTTP 404).

3. IRS SOI gross migration file by AGI class and age, 2022-2023 (2223inmigall.csv), and the same file for earlier years Inflow, outflow and matched returns by AGI class (agi_stub 7 = $200,000 or more) and by age of the primary taxpayer, with year-1 and year-2 AGI. Earlier years at https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/YYYYinmigall.csv for YYYY = 1112 through 2122.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Allowed.

   Reliability: Government. Same IRS return-matching as the state-to-state files, but excludes returns with negative AGI and includes moves abroad.

4. IRS, 2022-2023 Migration Data Users Guide Definitions: AGI is from the year-2 return and in thousands of dollars; 2022-23 matching change; disclosure rules; AGI classes and age groups in the gross file.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Allowed.

   Reliability: Government. IRS's own documentation of the files.

5. Revised Code of Washington 82.87.040, capital gains tax imposed Date the capital gains tax began: sales on or after January 1, 2022.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (Washington State law). Allowed.

   Reliability: Government. The official statute text published by the Washington Legislature's Code Reviser.

6. Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 6346, Chapter 238, Laws of 2026 (session law) Washington's 9.9% tax on taxable income over $1 million: approved March 30, 2026; tax imposed beginning January 1, 2028.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (Washington State law). Allowed.

   Reliability: Government. The enrolled session law as published by the Washington Legislature.

Limitations and reproducibility

Reproducible from public sources: Every input is a published IRS SOI migration file (stateinflowYYYY.csv, stateoutflowYYYY.csv, YYYYinmigall.csv at https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/). The included script fh-build-migration-dataset.js reads those files and writes every table and saved-analysis result in this dataset.

• The latest IRS file is 2022-23: moves between the returns filed in 2022 and 2023, with income from tax year 2022. It cannot show any response to Washington's 2026 income tax, which applies from January 1, 2028.
• Covers only people who filed federal tax returns in both years and could be matched by taxpayer ID. Non-filers are left out.
• AGI comes from the second-year return, filed from the new address, so part of a mover's income may have been earned in the old state.
• Averages are pulled up by a few very high incomes and one-time gains, such as stock or home sales. IRS publishes no medians.
• IRS changed its matching method for 2022-23, adding about 5% more returns. 2014-15 return counts are unusually low in both directions.
• Interstate flows exclude moves abroad. The $200,000-plus counts come from IRS's gross migration file, which includes moves abroad and leaves out returns with negative AGI, so its totals differ slightly from the state-to-state files.
• The $200,000 class is a fixed dollar amount, so more filers cross it as incomes rise. It is far below the $1 million threshold of Washington's 2026 income tax, and IRS migration data have no $1 million class.