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What is driving Iowa’s population growth in metro areas? Why is rural Iowa losing people? Are birth rates declining? How has immigration impacted growth? To answer these questions, I chart trends in annual population growth between 2000 and 2025, taken from the US Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Program. Metropolitan Iowa includes counties with a city of 50,000 or more, plus surrounding suburban counties. Non-metro Iowa are counties outside metro areas.

Population change is disaggregated into four components. Natural change is the difference between births and deaths, where more births results in a natural gain, and more deaths results in a natural loss. Domestic migration is the difference between people moving in versus those who move out, all within the US. More people moving in than leaving results in net in-migration, and more leaving than coming in results in net out-migration. International migration tracks flows into and out of the US, regardless of citizenship or legal status, for the following groups: non-US born persons, US-born persons, persons from US territories, and personnel transfers of US Armed Forces. Illegal migration is estimated, but is likely undercounted due insufficient data. Error represents persons in the population that could not be accounted for by natural change or migration.

Statewide Trends in Iowa

Natural change plummets, as birth rates fall and death rate rise. For most of the past 25 years, annual population growth was driven by natural change, meaning the number of births exceeded deaths in the state. As COVID-19 hit Iowa between 2020-21, natural growth fell to near zero, as people died from the pandemic and family planning was delayed. Today in the 2020s, natural growth rates are down 70% from the 2000s, and down 60% from the 2010s. This was caused by birth rates (per 1,000 women age 15-44) falling from a high of 71 in 2007, down to 59 by 2025. Death rates per 1,000 have also risen, from an average of about 9 during the 2000s and 2010s, up to 11 during the 2020s.

Domestic outmigration has slowed. Iowa suffered sizable outmigration in the early 2000s, shrinking the state’s population by nearly 0.5% each year. However, strong natural growth and modest immigration offset losses, resulting in no change in overall population. Fewer people left Iowa between 2004 and 2014 due to the Great Recession, and coupled with high natural growth, Iowa’s population grew by 0.5% each year over this period—the highest gains over the past 25 years. As the national economy recovered after 2014, Iowans began leaving the state again.

Immigration soared after COVID-19. Although domestic outmigration slowed, immigration from abroad expanded rapidly. Immigration accounted for about 33% of state population gains during the 2000s, but rose to nearly 60% during the 2010s. Today, immigration fuels population growth in Iowa, offsetting slow natural growth and outmigration. For example, immigrants accounted for all growth in 2023, 81% of gains in 2024, and 74% in 2025.

Immigration enforcement slowed Iowa’s population. In President Trump’s second term in 2025, the federal government imposed immigration restrictions and greatly expanded immigration actions across the nation. In Iowa, this cut immigration into the state by 50% last year, causing population growth to fall from 0.49% to 0.25%.

Non-Metro Trends in Iowa

Non-metro Iowa shrinking due to outmigration and natural decline. Outside of the state’s metro areas, rural Iowa has lost population every year since 2020, despite the ups and downs of the farm economy, national recessions, and COVID-19. From 2000 to 2020, all losses were from massive outmigration of people from rural counties, who moved to Iowa’s metro areas or left the state altogether. Outmigration slowed in the 2010s, but a new problem emerged: natural losses. For the first time in two decades, there were more deaths than births. This means since 2020, rural Iowa was unable to grow their own population from within.

Immigrants are the only growing segments of rural Iowa’s population. Natural decline should have worsened rural population losses. Instead, a surge in immigration boosted population growth. For example, between 2022 and 2024 rural Iowa would have shrunk by 0.4% without immigration, verses the actual loss of only 0.1% with them. Over the past year (2024 to 2025), immigration enforcement has cut rural immigration by 40%, worsening rural population losses from only 0.09% to a 0.28% loss.

Looming population cliff in rural Iowa. Outmigration, more deaths than births, and falling immigration will harm rural economies and communities in the latter half of the 2020s. Fewer people means fewer workers resulting in labor shortages, fewer students means school consolidation, fewer patients means hospital closures, and fewer customers means closure of Main Street business and other essential services (child care, senior services, and home construction).

Non-Metro Midwest Trends

Population trends in rural Iowa are worse than in the rural Midwest. Non-metro areas in the Midwest region have experienced similar trends, but have fared better than Iowa. There was less outmigration in the rural Midwest in the 2000s and 2010s. More importantly, there has been net in-migration in the 2020s, resulting in small population gains between 2022 and 2025. Most in-migration has been from retirees into natural amenity areas in northern states (Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) and South Dakota.

Metropolitan Trends in Iowa

Metro Iowa baby boom turned bust. In contrast to rural Iowa, the state’s metropolitan centers had strong natural gains, where larger shares on younger adults boosted birth rates. However, metros are not immune from falling births and rising deaths. Natural growth fueled 60% to 70% of metro population gains in the 2000s and 2010s, but by the 2020s the rate fell to only 36%.

Immigration boom in cities. Over the same period, immigration has become more important in fueling metro population growth. International migrants accounted for only 17% of metro gains in the 2000s. Today in 2025, immigrants make up over half of metro population growth.

Metro Midwest Trends

Metro Iowa growing faster than Midwest peers—less dependent on immigrants. Over the past 25 years, metro Iowa has posted faster growth rates annually than other metros in the Midwest. Growth in other states were hindered by persistent outmigration, slower natural gains, and higher rate of immigration. By contrast, people tend to be moving into Iowa’s cities, natural gains have been strong (although births have fallen and deaths have risen in the 2020s), and population growth is less dependent immigration. This last point is an important consideration in the current era of immigration reform. In the near term, many states and counties will no longer be able to rely on immigrants to offset out-migration, falling births and rising deaths.

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Analysis and writing by:
Dr. David Peters, Professor and Extension State Specialist: Agriculture and Rural Policy
email: dpeters@iastate.edu | tel. 515-294-6303  

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