9 Reasons Rhode Islanders Are Leaving the State They Grew Up In

About 1,600 more Rhode Islanders packed up for another state than moved in from one last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest population count.

Only overseas arrivals kept the state’s population from shrinking.

These are the reasons Rhode Islanders are leaving the state they grew up in.

Note: This is general information, not financial, tax, or insurance advice. Tax rates and insurance premiums are subject to change.

1. Property Tax Squeeze

Rhode Island’s statewide property tax levy jumped 3.7% in fiscal 2026, the sharpest one-year increase in a decade, according to an analysis from the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council.

Seven cities and towns blew past the state’s 4% levy cap that year, the most in a decade.

Nobody budgeted for that.

Rhode Island homeowners already carried one of the country’s heaviest property tax loads before that spike.

They paid about $2,505 per person in fiscal 2023, 10th-highest in the nation and 22% above the U.S. average.

Renters feel it too, since landlords in several communities pass a nearly $3,000 gap between owner-occupied and non-owner-occupied tax bills straight into the rent.

Homeowners already stretching to cover a bill like that don’t have much room left.

A jump this size is often what turns retiring somewhere cheaper from a someday idea into an actual for-sale sign.

2. Top-10 Tax Burden

Rhode Island’s combined state and local tax burden ranks 10th-highest in the nation at 9.29% of income, per WalletHub’s 2026 ranking.

Property taxes make up the biggest single slice of that bill, with income and sales taxes close behind.

That combined burden is what lands in a checking account every payday, well before anyone gets to keep the number printed on a paycheck stub.

There’s no relief.

United Van Lines’ 2025 National Movers Study found that the outbound movers it tracks nationally increasingly point to affordability, right alongside retirement, as the reason they left a state.

A combined tax bite this size is exactly the kind of affordability problem that survey is describing.

3. Rising Home Prices

Homes in Rhode Island go to pending in about 10 days, barely enough time to schedule a second showing.

Speed costs money.

That pace comes with a median home value that hit $515,289 in mid-2026, up 3.2% over the past year, according to Zillow.

A buyer who waited out 2025 gained nothing by waiting, since prices kept rising the entire time.

That kind of math is exactly why house hunters who can’t clear a down payment increasingly widen the search to a state where the same paycheck buys more house.

4. Nearly No New Homes

Rhode Island added just 922 new housing units in 2024, a 0.2% increase, ranking 49th of 50 states and Washington, D.C. for housing growth that year, according to Census data reported by the Boston Globe.

Illinois tied Rhode Island’s pace, and only Hawaii grew slower.

That’s not nearly enough.

That’s a lot of buyers chasing very few new addresses.

That scarcity is a big part of why Rhode Island’s home prices keep rising even as fewer people move in than move out.

With that few new listings hitting the market, even a buyer who can afford Rhode Island’s prices often can’t find a house to buy.

Widening the search to a neighboring state becomes the only way to close on one.

5. Spiking Winter Electric Bills

Rhode Island’s winter electricity rate rose 16% to 14.77 cents per kilowatt-hour starting Oct. 1, 2025, after state regulators approved the increase from Rhode Island Energy, pushing the average customer’s monthly bill up about $22.

Heat isn’t optional.

Add in delivery charges and the rest of the bill.

Rhode Island’s overall electricity price then averages 24.15 cents per kilowatt-hour, the fourth-highest average retail rate in the country, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s most recent state data.

That’s the kind of monthly hit that lands hardest on retirees living on a fixed income.

Retirement is already the third-ranked reason people give for leaving a state altogether, according to United Van Lines’ 2025 movers survey.

6. Surging Car Insurance Costs

Rhode Island drivers now pay an average of $3,583 a year for full-coverage car insurance, well above the roughly $2,244 national average, according to Insurify’s 2026 rate data.

That’s up from about $198 a month in 2023 to $299 a month by early 2025.

Insurers raised rates fast.

A driver who kept a clean record and changed nothing still watched the bill grow at every renewal.

That’s over $1,300 more a year than drivers pay nationally for the exact same coverage, a fixed cost no one can shop their way out of.

It’s exactly the kind of unavoidable expense that tips a family’s moving budget the other way.

7. Hasbro’s Boston Move

Hasbro is leaving too, relocating its corporate headquarters out of Pawtucket after about a century in Rhode Island, the toy giant announced in September 2025.

The move takes roughly 700 jobs to Boston’s Seaport district by the end of this year, out of the roughly 1,000 people Hasbro employs in Rhode Island.

That’s a lot of jobs.

Workers who want to keep their job have to move with it.

Hasbro’s chief executive pointed to Boston’s business community, academic partnerships, and public transit access as reasons for the move, exactly the kind of infrastructure Rhode Island has struggled to match.

8. RIPTA’s Bus Route Cuts

Rhode Island’s transit authority, formally the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA), cut service on 46 of 67 bus routes starting Sept. 27, 2025, to help close a $10 million budget shortfall.

The agency also eliminated 13 administrative positions, even as the base fare has stayed frozen at $2 a ride since 2010.

Riders felt it first.

The catch?

For people without a car, fewer routes and thinner weekend service make it harder to hold down a steady job.

Many shifts start before the first bus of the day even shows up.

When getting to work reliably means owning a car nobody without savings can suddenly afford, moving somewhere with dependable transit becomes the more realistic fix.

For some residents, that means leaving the state altogether.

9. Shrinking Working-Age Population

Rhode Island's population of residents ages 20 to 64 fell by more than 2,000 between 2022 and 2023, according to Rhode Island's Executive Office of Commerce.

That decline is concentrated in the residents likely to still be working, raising kids, or paying down a mortgage.

Those are exactly the people a state can least afford to lose.

The math is stark.

Overseas immigration, not births or people moving in from other states, is what kept Rhode Island's total population from falling during that same period.