Madison is the third-highest ranked destination city on U-Haul’s annual Growth Index for 2022, which is based on a market’s net gain of one-way U-Haul truck movement.
Madison ranked 5th in 2021 and 2020 on the U-Haul index.
Growth cities are calculated by the net gain of one-way U-Haul trucks entering a city versus leaving that city in a calendar year.
Milwaukee ranked 14th on the U-Haul Growth Index in 2021, but fell out of the top 25 in 2022. The Phoenix-based company said Milwaukee was one of five markets that “just missed the cut” of the top 25 of its Growth Index.
The top two ranked cities were Ocala, Florida and Sacramento-Roseville, California.
Wisconsin ranked 16th on the U-Haul Growth Index for states, down from 13th in 2021.
Texas was the top-ranked migration state in the U-Haul index. As for Midwestern states, Ohio was 9th, Indiana ranked 14th, Minnesota 17th, Iowa 21st, Michigan 48th and Illinois 49th.
U-Haul’s migration trends data is compiled from more than 2 million one-way U-Haul truck transactions that occur annually across the U.S. and Canada.
The U-Haul data is similar to recent U.S. Census Bureau data, which showed that Wisconsin added almost 12,500 residents in 2022. The state’s population as of July 1 came in at 5,892,539 in 2022. The addition of 12,438 was the 21st largest total in the country and the state’s 0.2% growth rate ranked 26th.
The Census Bureau estimates Wisconsin saw a natural population loss of 1,758 with 63,397 deaths slightly outpacing births. The state’s growth came from a net total of 15,831 people moving into the state, including 8,174 from outside the U.S. and 7,657 from elsewhere in the country.
