U-Haul's younger renters put California in their top three despite its six-year run of net losses

U-Haul's two most recent reports point in opposite directions on California. Its 2025 Growth Index put the state last, with the largest net loss of one-way customers of any state for a sixth straight year ^[6]. Its midyear report, built on the net gain of one-way trucks, trailers and U-Box containers from July 2025 through June 2026 ^[2], has the state second among Gen Z renters and third among millennials ^[1]. Both can hold because each generation is ranked only against its own movers, and California did not make the boomer or Gen X top 10 ^[1][7]. A state can rank second for young movers while more older customers leave it.

Millennials are the largest share of one-way rentals and Gen X is close behind, the two together above 60% ^[11]. That leaves boomers and Gen Z with less than 40% between them ^[16]. Gen Z's pool is also cut off at the young end. Renters must be 18 for a truck ^[13], and four of the generation's 16 birth years, 2009 through 2012, were too young to sign for one at any point in the window ^[18]. Each move is credited to whoever signs the contract, so some young movers get booked under their parents' generation; U-Haul's sizable Gen X gains in Gainesville, Fla., and Madison, Wis., suggest parents moving children to school ^[12].

The Census figures run the other way. California's population fell 0.5% between April 2020 and July 2025 while the US grew 3.1% ^[4], a gap of 3.6 percentage points ^[17]. In the latest year of estimates the state lost about 9,500 residents, largely because immigration dropped ^[5]. A count of one-way truck rentals is not built to capture arrivals from abroad, and Fortune notes the report is not a definitive measure of population change ^[14].

One reading, U-Haul's own, is that the two younger generations "may be helping curb California's exodus" ^[19], meaning young arrivals shrink a net loss driven by older departures. A second is that the age mix of California's movers is changing while the total stays negative. A third is that the signer rule and the age floor distort the cohort ranks enough that neither conclusion holds. I think the evidence supports the second, and U-Haul's version is the counter-case. If the next Growth Index lifts California off the bottom, U-Haul's reading wins. A seventh year in last place would favor the second.

The idea that young movers favor the coasts mostly describes Gen Z. Its top metro was New York City, New York was its No. 3 state, and Chicago, Denver and Seattle made its top 10 ^[9]. Millennials' metro list is led by Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Orlando, with Boise and the Bay Area as the outliers ^[10]. Their state list includes Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin, a pattern U-Haul attributed to career moves ^[10]. Boomers ranked South Carolina and North Carolina first and second, and the top five metros for boomers and Gen X were all in Florida, South Carolina, Arizona and Tennessee ^[8]. An operator using these lists would plan California around younger households and the Southeast around older ones. The Bay Area's No. 4 metro rank among millennials and Gen Z ^[3] shows who is arriving. Without counts, it cannot show whether total demand in the region is rising.