New York’s taxpayer outflow fell to its lowest level in at least a decade in 2024, continuing a sharp retreat from the pandemic-era surge that sent more than 112,000 taxpayers out of the state in a single year. The improvement is significant, but newly released state data shows New York is still losing more taxpayers than it gains — and the losses remain heavily concentrated among married households and higher earners.
A new dashboard from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office shows 121,251 taxpayers moved into New York in 2024, while 134,913 moved out. That left the state with a net loss of 13,662 taxpayers, equal to roughly one out of every 1,000 resident filers.
The net loss was smaller than in any year since the available data begins in 2015. It was also less than half the annual losses New York routinely experienced before the COVID-19 pandemic, when net out-migration generally ranged from 27,000 to 30,000 taxpayers per year.
Still, the broader trend has not reversed. New York has recorded net taxpayer out-migration every year since 2015, losing a combined 351,647 taxpayers on a net basis over the 10-year period.
Pandemic surge fades, but out-migration continues
New York entered the pandemic with a persistent but relatively stable pattern of taxpayer departures.
Between 2015 and 2019, the state lost an average of roughly 28,700 taxpayers per year. In each of those years, between 122,000 and 128,000 taxpayers moved into New York, while between 152,000 and 158,000 moved out.
That pattern broke dramatically in 2020.
Only 94,295 taxpayers moved into New York that year, while 206,753 left, creating a net loss of 112,458 taxpayers. The migration rate reached negative 1.18%, nearly four times the typical pre-pandemic rate.
The numbers began moving back toward historical levels in 2021, when the net loss fell to 39,247. It declined again to 27,089 in 2022, 15,681 in 2023 and 13,662 in 2024.
The 2024 loss represented a migration rate of negative 0.14%, compared with negative 0.31% in 2019 and negative 0.33% in 2015.
DiNapoli’s office characterized the 2020 spike as an aberration rather than a permanent shift. The latest figures support that conclusion, but they also show New York has not reached a point where the number of newcomers exceeds the number leaving.
The data measures part-year resident tax filers, not the state’s total population. It also counts tax returns rather than individual people, meaning a married couple filing jointly is counted as one taxpayer. Still, the figures offer a direct look at how households entering and leaving New York affect the state’s tax base.
Married households account for most of the loss
The sharpest divide in the 2024 data was not simply between people moving in and out. It was between single taxpayers and families.
New York gained 4,326 single filers on a net basis in 2024. A total of 90,588 single taxpayers moved into the state, compared with 86,262 who moved out.
It was the third consecutive year in which New York recorded net in-migration among single filers, marking one of the clearest positive trends in the post-pandemic data.
That gain was more than erased by married households.
New York lost 15,144 married filers on a net basis in 2024, with 24,687 moving in and 39,831 moving out. Married taxpayers had a net migration rate of negative 0.5%, more than three times the overall statewide rate.
The state also lost 2,844 head-of-household filers.
The pattern is not new. A previous comptroller’s analysis found married filers left New York at roughly twice the overall rate between 2015 and 2019. During that period, the net number of married taxpayers moving out averaged more than 20,000 per year.
The latest data shows the scale of those losses has narrowed, but families still account for virtually all of New York’s net out-migration.
That distinction matters because a tax return filed by a married household may represent several residents, including children. It also suggests New York’s migration challenge is tied closely to the cost and logistics of raising a family, including housing, child care, education, property taxes and other recurring expenses.
Middle- and high-income taxpayers remain most mobile
Income also plays a major role in the state’s taxpayer losses.
The largest numerical loss in 2024 came from taxpayers earning between $100,000 and $499,999. New York lost 7,668 filers in that income range on a net basis, including 8,179 married households.
Those married, middle- and upper-income filers alone accounted for nearly 60% of the state’s total net taxpayer loss.
New York also lost 2,085 taxpayers earning $500,000 or more. Although that group was smaller in raw numbers, it had the highest overall out-migration rate at negative 0.97% — close to one out of every 100 resident taxpayers in that income range.
Among married filers earning at least $500,000, the net loss rate was even higher at 1.09%.
Lower-income categories showed smaller rates of decline. New York lost 1,395 taxpayers earning between $50,000 and $99,999, a migration rate of negative 0.06%, and 2,514 earning less than $50,000, a rate of negative 0.05%.
Single taxpayers showed gains in nearly every income group below $500,000. New York gained 1,326 single filers earning between $100,000 and $499,999, 2,296 earning between $50,000 and $99,999 and 882 earning less than $50,000.
That suggests New York continues to attract or retain younger professionals and single workers, even as it struggles to hold onto married households as their incomes and family costs rise.
Why the trend matters for the state budget
Personal income taxes are New York’s largest revenue source, providing more than half of all state tax collections in the 2026 fiscal year.
That makes taxpayer migration more than a demographic concern. It is a long-term budget issue.
Most people who leave New York eventually stop paying state personal income taxes entirely. Some continue filing as nonresidents because they earn income from New York businesses, employers or investments, but the state generally taxes only their New York-derived income.
A previous comptroller’s report found that nearly 46,000 of the more than 157,000 taxpayers who left in 2019 continued to report some New York income the following year. However, New York taxes captured an average of only about one-fifth of those taxpayers’ total income.
The risk is particularly pronounced at the top of the income scale. High earners account for a disproportionate share of personal income tax collections, meaning the departure of a relatively small number of wealthy households can have an outsized fiscal impact.
The latest figures do not support claims that New York’s tax base is collapsing. The 2024 net loss was modest compared with the state’s roughly 10.9 million total tax filers, and the post-pandemic trend is moving in a favorable direction.
But the data also does not support complacency.
New York has made measurable progress since 2020, yet it continues to lose taxpayers every year. More importantly, it is losing the married, middle-class and high-income households that provide stability to communities and a substantial share of the revenue used to fund schools, health care, transportation and other public services.
The immediate crisis of 2020 has passed. The deeper affordability and competitiveness problem has not.
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