Rock Hill region helps boost SC to become the nation’s fastest-growing state

South Carolina is the fastest-growing state in the country, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data, fueled by residents from North Carolina and abroad.

The Palmetto State grew by 1.5% from 2024 to 2025, to nearly 5.6 million residents. South Carolina has grown by more than 450,000 people since 2000, an increase of 8.8%.

The 2025 population estimates for counties, cities and towns won’t come out until the spring, but it’s hard to imagine the Rock Hill region won’t factor significantly into the state total.

From 2020 to 2024, Lancaster County was the third-fastest growing county in the state, at 16.3%. Fort Mill was the fastest-growing municipality in the Charlotte region in that span at 47.8%, with York next at 15.8%. Clover, Tega Cay and Lancaster all ranked in the top 10.

The Rock Hill region also sits just south of the biggest contributor to South Carolina’s population growth.

The census bureau asked South Carolina residents in 2024 where they lived a year prior. Survey responses found 33,151 people had moved from North Carolina, according to data released this month.

That’s nearly twice as many people as the next highest state, New York, at 18,324.

Population growth surge in the Carolinas

North Carolina, the third-fastest growing state in the country according to Tuesday’s census data, also gets people from South Carolina.

The 29,982 people who moved from South Carolina to North Carolina in 2024 ranks only behind the 33,591 people who came to North Carolina from Florida.

South Carolina’s nation-leading, one-year growth rate is due largely to migration from within the United States, according to the Census Bureau. Of the 79,958 more people in a year, 83.3% of them came from another state.

Total growth from international moves is less than half of what it was in 2024.

The nearly 80,000 more residents in South Carolina put the state fifth for total population growth, behind the much larger states or Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia. Those states have between twice and five times as many residents as South Carolina.

Separate information released by the census bureau this month shows 50.7% of people who live in South Carolina were born in the state.

Another 7.4% were born in another country. The most common outside states of birth for South Carolina residents are North Carolina (5.2%), New York (5%) and Georgia (3.7%).