Wisconsin's Population Growth Slows Due to Sharp Decrease in International Migration to the State

Wednesday, April 1st, 2026 -- 9:01 AM

(Joe Schulz, Wisconsin Public Radio) Wisconsin’s population growth slowed in 2025 after international migration to the state was cut by more than half, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Wisconsin’s natural population growth from births outpacing deaths has remained low for much of the 2020s, Census data shows. In fact, deaths outpaced births for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 and 2022.

That’s meant international and domestic migration have been the main drivers of the state’s population growth. Wisconsin saw an estimated more than 18,000 people move to the state from abroad each year from 2022 through 2024, according to Census data.

But the number of people who moved to Wisconsin from other countries dropped from 19,395 in 2024 to 7,260 in 2025, Census Bureau figures show. As a result, overall population growth slowed from an estimated 26,818 in 2024 to an estimated 15,619 in 2025, the Census Bureau reports.

David Egan-Robertson, demographer emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Applied Population Laboratory, said the three years of strong international migration to Wisconsin was driven largely by humanitarian migration, including the resettlement of Afghan refugees.

He said immigration policy is controlled at the federal level. “I think it’s mostly traceable to the change from the previous to the current administration,” Egan-Robertson said. “It’s a pretty safe assumption that the change in administration of the country led to this big decline.”

The current administration has taken a hardline stance against both illegal and legal immigration and has expanded deportation efforts. The slowdown isn’t unique to Wisconsin. The Census Bureau reports that every state saw declines in net international migration from 2024 to 2025.

“The overall trend around slowing population growth, slowing international migration, that’s a national story, and our state seems more or less in line with the national average in those areas,” said Mark Sommerhauser, a policy researcher for the Wisconsin Policy Forum.

The Census Bureau also reports that lower international migration contributed to lower population growth in the country’s most populous counties. According to Census data, Milwaukee County’s population was essentially flat, decreasing by 107 from 2024 to 2025.

Meanwhile, Dane County’s population growth slowed from increasing by 7,026 in 2024 to 4,050 last year. “A lot of the slowdown in terms of population changes is largely due to that drop in international migration in general,” Egan-Robertson said.

The Census Bureau estimates that the number of people who moved to Milwaukee County from abroad declined from 5,688 to 1,973 from 2024 to 2025. In Dane County, international migration fell from 4,404 to 2,049.

Overall population growth also slowed in the Green Bay and Appleton metropolitan areas, but the decrease wasn’t quite as sharp as in the Milwaukee-Waukesha and Madison metro areas, Census data shows.

For example, the Madison metro area’s population growth slowed from 7,387 in 2024 to 4,143, while Milwaukee-Waukesha’s growth slowed from 5,303 to 2,512. Meanwhile, the Appleton metro area’s population grew by more than 1,300 in 2025, down slightly from about 1,500 in 2024.

And Green Bay metro’s population growth fell from 2,271 in 2024 to 1,730 in 2025. While international migration took a dip in 2025, domestic migration, people moving to Wisconsin from other states, ticked up statewide from 5,828 in 2024 to 6,984 last year.

Sommerhauser said that’s a shift for the 2020s, after Wisconsin lost residents to domestic migration through much of the 2000s and 2010s. “We have four straight years with this ’25 data where we’ve seen net domestic migration in the positive,” he said. “These aren’t huge numbers of people … but it is a shift.”

Even so, Wisconsin continues to have an aging population with relatively low birth rates, meaning migration, especially from abroad, is the primary driver of population growth.

Sommerhauser said low population growth could have long-term consequences for the state’s economy, workforce and school system. “If we continue to see our population growth level off, that’s going to affect institutions and companies and our economy throughout the state in a myriad of ways,” he said.

“Some of the entities that are going to see the most dramatic impacts would be our educational sector, our schools (and) our universities.”

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