Americans Leaving the US: What the Data Shows (2026)

Are Americans really leaving the US in record numbers, or is it just noise that spikes every election night? Short answer: both things are true. The desire to leave is at an all-time recorded high and actual departures are climbing to levels not seen in decades, but the gap between the two remains enormous. Here are the numbers, with sources, updated for 2026.

The key numbers at a glance

• 20% of Americans told Gallup in 2025 they would like to leave the US permanently, double the share of a decade ago
• 40% of American women under 45 say they want to leave, a record for any demographic Gallup has measured
• An estimated 4.4 to 5.5 million US citizens live abroad
• Nearly 5,000 Americans renounced their citizenship in 2024, up 48% from 2023 and the third-highest year on record
• Q1 2025 renunciations more than doubled year-over-year; the full 2025 total is projected to set an all-time record
• The American population in Portugal grew 36% in a single year

One in five Americans wants out. That's new.

For most of the 2010s, Gallup's long-running migration survey found about 10% of Americans saying they'd like to move to another country permanently. That number began climbing in 2016, hit new records in the mid-2020s, and reached 20% in Gallup's 2025 polling.

The demographic breakdown is the striking part. Desire to leave skews heavily young and female: among women aged 15 to 44, four in ten now say they want to leave, roughly four times the level of a decade ago. Gallup attributes the trend to a mix of political dissatisfaction, affordability, and quality-of-life concerns, with remote work removing a practical barrier that used to keep the wish hypothetical.

Worth noting on the other side of the ledger: the US has also become less attractive to would-be immigrants. Gallup's global polling found the desire to move to the US at a new low, a symmetry that says something about the moment.

How many actually go?

Estimates put the number of US citizens living abroad between 4.4 and 5.5 million. (You'll still see "9 million" cited; that was a 2016 State Department estimate the Department stopped publishing because it couldn't stand behind the data.) Against a population of 340 million, that's under 2% of Americans, versus the 20% who say they want to go.

So for every ten Americans who want to leave, roughly one ever lives abroad, and most of those eventually return. The gap isn't hypocrisy. Leaving is administratively hard: every long-term destination requires a visa or residence permit, US tax obligations follow citizens worldwide, and careers, kids, and aging parents anchor people in place. Wanting out and getting out are different projects.

That said, the flow is accelerating. Reporting through 2025 and 2026 has described departures at levels not seen in generations, and the paper trail backs it up in at least two hard datasets: renunciations and destination-country residence data.

Renunciations: small numbers, record growth

Giving up US citizenship entirely is the most extreme measurable form of leaving, and it's spiking.

Nearly 5,000 Americans renounced in 2024, a 48% jump from the 3,260 recorded in 2023 and the third-highest annual figure ever. The first quarter of 2025 alone recorded 1,285 renunciations, more than double the same quarter a year earlier, putting 2025 on pace to break the all-time record of roughly 6,700 set in 2020.

Two caveats make these numbers conservative. The Federal Register lists renunciations with a 12-to-18-month lag, so published figures trail reality. And renouncing requires already holding another citizenship (you can't make yourself stateless), plus a $2,350 State Department fee and, for wealthier Americans, a potential exit tax. The renunciation count therefore measures only people who cleared every hurdle, a fraction of those heading that direction.

Where they're going

Mexico hosts more Americans than any other country, a long-standing pattern driven by proximity, cost, and family ties.

The fastest growth story is Portugal. Official Portuguese immigration data counts about 19,000 American residents, up 36% in a single year and more than 40% since 2020, making Americans one of the country's fastest-growing foreign populations. Spain, Canada, the UK, Costa Rica, and the Netherlands round out most rankings of where departing Americans land.

The common thread across destinations: lower cost of living, walkability and safety, and (for Europe) residence permits that lead to eventual citizenship. Which points at the deeper pattern in all of this data.

The real trend isn't relocation. It's exit infrastructure.

Read the numbers together and a more interesting picture emerges than "everyone is moving to Lisbon":

Twenty percent want to leave. Under two percent actually live abroad. But record numbers are acquiring the ability to leave: second residencies, second citizenships, foreign accounts. The renunciation curve and the citizenship-by-descent backlogs at Irish and Italian consulates measure the same behavior: insurance-buying, not mass departure.

That matches what we see at CitizenX: most Americans acquiring a second citizenship have no near-term plan to move. They're closing the gap between wanting the option and having it, while keeping their lives in the US exactly as they are. The distinction matters because the two projects have completely different costs. Relocating means upending a career and family. Acquiring the option means paperwork and, depending on the path, an investment, all doable from home. Our guide to getting a second passport without leaving the US covers the four realistic routes, and if you're weighing the bigger question, start with should I leave the US?

Common questions

How many Americans leave the US each year? There's no official departure count, since the US doesn't track citizens leaving. Proxies suggest the number of Americans establishing residence abroad annually is in the low hundreds of thousands and rising, against roughly 5 million total living abroad.

Why are Americans leaving the US? Surveys consistently rank political climate, cost of living (especially healthcare and housing), and safety as the top drivers, with remote work as the enabler. Gallup's data shows the sharpest increases in desire to leave among young women.

Are more people leaving the US than moving to it? No. Immigration to the US still far exceeds emigration. What's changed is the direction of the trend lines: desire to leave is at a record high while the US's attractiveness to global migrants has fallen to a record low in Gallup's polling.

Do Americans who leave give up citizenship? Very few. Renunciations run in the low thousands per year against millions abroad, because renouncing is expensive, requires holding another citizenship first, and ends US filing obligations that most expats simply tolerate instead.

---

Data current as of August 2026; figures update as Gallup, the Federal Register, and destination-country immigration agencies publish. Sources: Gallup World Poll and migration surveys, US Federal Register quarterly expatriation lists, AIMA (Portugal).

CitizenX helps Americans build the exit option the data says they want: second citizenship through vetted government programs, arranged without leaving home.