Fewer out-of-state residents, especially Californians, moved to Nevada last year, according to Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles driver’s license surrender data obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The DMV collected approximately 82,072 surrendered out-of-state or country driver’s licenses or IDs in 2025, a 14 percent drop from 2024 when 95,444 were surrendered.
Californians surrendered 33,296 driver’s licenses or IDs last year in Nevada, a 14.6 percent drop from 2024 when 38,970 were surrendered.
This is part of a much larger trend going on in Nevada, across the country and most of the world, said Brian Bonnenfant, the project manager for the Center for Regional Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno. Drops in international migration to the U.S. coupled with declining birth rates are starting to shift demographic trends everywhere.
“We are slow-walking into a paradigm shift that will have just as much impact on our economies and way of life as wars and pandemics, but at a pace that hides the shock,” he said.
President Donald Trump’s administration has made securing the border and illegal immigration a priority since coming into office, and Bonnenfant said the data is starting to show now.
“It’s all coming to a head, but sooner than I expected,” he said. “Lower birth rates, less immigration, more deportations, slow-moving Boomer de-pop, education rankings, global warming, industry wages, and of course, housing costs. Not to mention that we are still correcting from COVID’s unleashing of the masses.”
After the mass migration wave during COVID, partially fueled by remote work, died off, Bonnenfant said most people are now staying where they are and choosing to wait out what appears to be uncertain economic times. He said the big shift will be from controlling inmigration and population related to a specific area to attracting citizens to move to a specific area to keep local economies afloat.
“Especially now, in times of economic and political uncertainty, people move much less,” he said.
Multiple population projections from universities, research centers and think tanks are now forecasting that the U.S. will dip into negative organic growth territory (births and deaths) by as soon as 2030. Bonnenfant said state-level data already shows that close to 14 of Nevada’s 17 counties are already seeing more deaths than births.
“And, yes, this will eventually impact workforce across low-wage industries and will increase cost of living due to industries paying more for labor while passing these higher costs to the consumer,” he said. “This also affects social security solvency, local and state government revenues, and the services they pay for such as interest rates, and paying down the national debt. The years of abundance are over and inflation is now our co-pilot.”
Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.
