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Arkansas seeing boom in population, report says

Thousands of people have recently been choosing Arkansas as their new home— here are the top ten states they're relocating from.

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas — According to Department of Finance and Administration data from 2022, thousands of people have recently chosen Arkansas as their home.

You may have found yourself wondering, how are they tracking this? The answer to that is the number of license and vehicle registration transfers from out-of-state drivers.

Though there could be a good explanation for why people want to come to the Natural State.

"We are a magnet for talent right now because we've got so many opportunities from one end of the state to the other," said Randy Zook, Arkansas Chamber of Commerce CEO.

Arkansas is home to many national and international companies and has booming business growth.

It wasn't until the state ran a certain report to see just how much our local economy has been attracting people from across the country.

DFA officials were able to research who has been coming to Arkansas by the number of out-of-state license transfers.

The results surprised them. These are the top ten places where people are moving from, according to the license transfers:

  1. Texas - 9,441 transfers
  2. California - 5,234 transfers
  3. Oklahoma - 3,305 transfers
  4. Florida - 2,840 transfers
  5. Tennessee - 2,427 transfers
  6. Louisiana - 2,265 transfers
  7. Colorado - 1,953 transfers
  8. Arizona - 1,773 transfers
  9. Illinois - 1,698 transfers
  10. Mississippi - 1,446 transfers

Officials explained that California was something they did not expect to see.

"I think Arkansas is getting overlooked in these national stories about Californians moving to Texas and to Tennessee. I think Arkansas should be a part of that conversation," said Scott Hardin with DFA.

Not only was California on the list but other states, like Colorado and Illinois, made the top ten.

Zook said it could be partly due to Arkansas' growing economy, and he hopes to keep that momentum up.

"We've got a balanced budget, we've had surpluses that's continued, and we've really just had a reduction in our income tax rates," Zook said.

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