Carson City migration: who moves in and out

Carson City is an independent city that works as its own county, 33 miles and about 39 minutes from the Sparks warehouse by the free-flow drive time in this data set. The two tables above show the 15 counties that sent the most people to Carson City and the 15 that received the most people leaving it, each as a yearly average for 2016-2020.

• Largest flowWashoe County, Nevada
• Moved from Washoe County to Carson City, per yearabout 1,362
• Moved from Carson City to Washoe County, per yearabout 738

Data: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS county-to-county migration flows 2016-2020 (5-year, yearly averages with margins of error).

Data: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS county-to-county migration flows 2016-2020 (5-year, yearly averages with margins of error).

Reading the inbound table

Four counties account for most of the large inbound rows: Washoe (1,362, plus or minus 313), Douglas (645, plus or minus 335), El Dorado (573, plus or minus 429) and Clark (548, plus or minus 256). Lyon County (250) and Churchill County (147) follow. Everything below that is a handful of people a year from places as far apart as Collin County, Texas and Sonoma County, California, and the margins of error there are as large as the estimates themselves.

El Dorado County is the only California county with a large inbound number, which matches its position directly across the Sierra on the Lake Tahoe side.

Washoe to Carson City is a net inflow

Compare the two tables for Washoe County. Inbound is 1,362 a year and outbound is 738 a year, a difference of about 624 people in Carson City's favor. The margins of error are 313 and 329, which combine to roughly 450, so the gap is bigger than the noise. By contrast, the Lyon County pair (250 in, 432 out) and the Douglas County pair (645 in, 319 out) point in opposite directions, and both have wide margins.

Outbound destinations beyond Nevada are thin: Placer County, California (176), St. Joseph County, Indiana (200) and Johnson County, Kansas (121) each have margins larger than the estimate, so treat them as 'a few people a year' rather than as established routes.

Carson City in context

The Census Population Estimates Program puts Carson City at 54,152 people in 2015, 56,034 in 2020 and 58,571 in 2025. Net moves in from other U.S. counties for 2020-2025 add up to about 1,598 people, a smaller engine of growth than in Lyon or Washoe County. The 2020-2024 American Community Survey shows 23,692 households in the city, 37.7 percent of them renting, with a median year built of 1981 and a median home value of $453,000.

For a mover, a median build year of 1981 simply means the estimator checks stairs, hallways and storage spaces room by room during the walk-through, as with any home.

What it means if you are moving to or from Carson City

Most Carson City moves with Reno, Sparks or the Carson Valley are short, in-state jobs on the I-580 corridor. See the Carson City service page and the Carson City new-resident guide for neighborhood and utility details.

Because the largest flow is with Washoe County, a move between the two cities is a common request and is priced from the written in-home estimate like any other local or in-state move.

Limits of the data

These are survey estimates of people, not moves of households, and they average five years that ended in 2020. They cannot say how many movers hired a company, how far inside the city anyone moved, or whether a person counted as 'moved in' is a student, a state employee or a retiree.