Where People Are Moving To In Colorado In 2026

Colorado crossed the six-million-resident mark for the first time in mid-2025, but the growth engine behind that milestone no longer runs through Denver. Arapahoe and Denver counties together lost nearly 18,000 residents to domestic out-migration between July 2024 and July 2025, according to the Colorado State Demography Office's review of the latest Census Bureau county estimates. Boulder and Jefferson counties recorded smaller losses of the same kind.

Most of the people leaving those counties are landing in Weld County, which added 7,146 residents, and Douglas County, which added 6,345. Demographers point to one driver above the rest: new home construction concentrated in the counties ringing metro Denver, priced well below what's left inside the city limits. The result is a state where growth has shifted from the urban core to a band of towns along and just east of Interstate 25.

Colorado Springs

Colorado Springs added 2,288 residents between July 2024 and July 2025, more than any other city in the state, according to Vintage 2025 Census Bureau estimates compiled by the Colorado State Demography Office. That's modest in percentage terms, about half a percent, but it came in a year when more than half of Colorado's 272 municipalities lost population, including Denver and Boulder.

Real estate analysts covering the local market cite migration out of Denver as one of the forces keeping Colorado Springs housing sales active, and regional economists have found El Paso County has stayed considerably cheaper to live in than Denver since the pandemic, even as its own median home price pushes past $450,000. The Air Force Academy, Peterson and Schriever Space Force Bases, and Fort Carson anchor a job base that gives arrivals stable employment most growing exurbs can't offer. Vacancy rates ticked up to 8.3% by the end of 2025, a small easing after years of a tight rental market, and the city added the 95-unit Sumner House affordable complex downtown that same year.

Erie

Erie grew 9.2% between July 2023 and July 2024, adding 3,261 residents to reach a population of 38,594, the 15th-fastest growth rate of any city its size in the country that year, per Census Bureau estimates. The town sits across the Boulder-Weld county line, and Colorado demographers have tied its growth directly to spillover from both Boulder County and the Denver area, as buyers priced out of Boulder look for homes a short drive east.

What used to be a farm town with dirt streets now has a King Soopers-anchored shopping center, a Lowe's, and a growing string of breweries and restaurants along its main corridor. New residents are largely families drawn by newer subdivisions and the promise of Boulder-area amenities without Boulder County price tags.

Windsor

Windsor's population reached 41,734 in the Census Bureau's 2024 city and town estimates, up 1,342 residents, or 3.3%, over the prior year. The town straddles Larimer and Weld counties, and Weld County's own demographic office has singled out the Windsor portion within its borders as one of southern Weld's fastest-growing areas, posting an annual growth rate above 3.6%.

That tracks the pattern state demographers have flagged across southern Weld generally. Households priced out of Boulder County and the Denver metro are filling in what was agricultural land along U.S. 34. Downtown Windsor has kept its lake and historic core intact even as new subdivisions spread along its edges, and grocery-anchored retail has followed the rooftops out toward the town's newer commercial corridors.

Johnstown

Johnstown's population hit 22,433 in the Census Bureau's 2025 estimates, a growth rate that ranked it 10th nationally among towns and cities with more than 20,000 residents, according to figures from the State Demography Office. Like Windsor and Erie, Johnstown spans the Larimer-Weld county line, and its growth is tied to the same southern Weld corridor absorbing households leaving Boulder County and the Denver area.

The largest single driver is Granary, a master-planned development slated to include more than 3,600 homes once complete, with national builders including Century Communities, Richmond American and D.R. Horton active on site. The project is going up along the Interstate 25 corridor and is designed around parks, trails and future retail space rather than a single subdivision drop. For now, Johnstown remains smaller and less built-out than its Weld County neighbors, which is part of the appeal for buyers who want new construction without the traffic that's arrived in Erie.

Severance

Severance's population estimate stood at 11,554 as of 2023, up from 7,683 at the 2020 Census, a 142.75% increase over the decade and roughly 6.6% growth in the most recent year measured, among the fastest rates in Weld County. The town sits northwest of Greeley, and its growth is part of the same southern Weld build-out drawing households from Boulder County and the Denver metro that's reshaping its neighbors along U.S. 85.

Severance remains one of the smaller communities on this list in absolute terms, which means new subdivisions can still visibly outnumber the town's original core in a given year. Bruce's Bar, a longtime local restaurant known well beyond Weld County, remains one of the few fixtures from Severance's pre-boom era, now surrounded by new single-family developments extending toward Windsor and Eaton

Castle Rock and Douglas County

Douglas County added 6,345 residents between July 2024 and July 2025, a 1.6% increase and the second-largest numeric gain of any Colorado county after Weld, according to the State Demography Office's review of Census Bureau estimates. Castle Rock, the county seat, has grown to roughly 81,000 residents and continues drawing permits for single-family and townhome construction, along with neighboring Castle Pines and Parker, per the county's own demographic reporting.

Douglas County holds the highest median household income of any county in Colorado, and much of its net in-migration tracks the same core-to-suburb pattern reshaping metro Denver, with Arapahoe, Denver and Jefferson counties among those recording net domestic losses over the same period. The county sits directly between Denver and Colorado Springs, giving new residents a commute option toward either job market.

Reading the Patterns

Every place on this list sits along or just off the I-25 corridor between Fort Collins and Colorado Springs, which is where nearly all of Colorado's net in-state migration is landing right now. The counties losing residents, such as Denver, Arapahoe, Boulder, and Jefferson, aren't shrinking dramatically, but the shift toward Weld, Douglas, Larimer and El Paso is the clearest state-level signal in the data, and demographers expect it to continue as construction stays concentrated in those counties. For current Front Range residents, that means longer commutes into Denver from an ever-wider ring of towns, faster school enrollment growth in a handful of districts, and a housing market where the more affordable options keep moving farther from downtown.