Florida Isn’t Winning Retirees Like It Used To. Here Are the 7 States Taking Them

A retired couple in Naples opens their homeowners insurance renewal, and the number is up again.

They start pricing homes in other states.

These are the states pulling Florida’s retirees somewhere else.

Note: This is general information, not financial or tax advice. State tax rules, property values, and migration figures are subject to change.

Understanding Florida’s Migration

Despite grim numbers, Americans aren’t saying a resounding “no” to Florida; the Sunshine State drew the most retirees of any state in 2025, with 45,696 people 65 and older moving in.

It also lost 44,881 to other states that same year, leaving a net gain of only 815.

That’s the thinnest cushion Florida has had in years, according to the moving company HireAHelper’s analysis of nearly 15 million U.S. moves.

1. South Carolina

South Carolina added more retirees over 65 than any other state in 2025, a net gain of 5,427 people, according to HireAHelper’s 2026 migration study.

Florida ranked as the second-largest source of South Carolina’s new arrivals, trailing only North Carolina, with 1,862 people making that exact move in a single year.

The pull isn’t just the coastline.

South Carolina exempts Social Security from state income tax entirely and lets retirees exclude an additional $15,000 of other retirement income.

Its property taxes average 0.51% of a home’s value, among the lowest rates in the country.

New arrivals are picking Myrtle Beach and the Charleston suburbs over every other part of the state.

The beach stayed the same.

The tax bill got smaller.

2. Texas

Texas posted the second-biggest net gain of retirement-age adults in 2025, adding 5,156 people 65 and older, HireAHelper’s data shows.

Florida was Texas’s second-largest source of new retirees too, sending 2,048 people across state lines in a single year, trailing only California.

Texas charges no state income tax at all, not on a paycheck, a pension, or a 401(k) withdrawal.

That’s the same pitch Florida makes.

Texas backs it with cheaper housing across many parts of the state and a medical system anchored by Houston’s hospital district.

Its property tax bill runs higher, though, averaging 1.58% of a home’s value each year, nearly triple South Carolina’s rate.

That’s the trade-off.

On Texas’s current median home price of $301,806, that 1.58% rate works out to about $4,770 a year in property taxes, a bigger annual bill than Florida’s own 0.79% rate charges on a similarly priced house.

3. North Carolina

North Carolina posted a net gain of 3,202 retirement-age adults in 2025, the third-highest total nationwide, per HireAHelper’s analysis.

Real estate broker Lauren Reinhardt, who works the Asheville market, told 24/7 Wall St. that about 40% of her retiree clients now come from Florida.

Heat and overdevelopment are what they mention first, she said.

North Carolina answers with four distinct seasons instead of one long summer, plus mountain towns, coastal counties, and cities built around major hospital systems.

The state doesn’t tax Social Security, though its flat 3.99% rate applies to pensions and 401(k) withdrawals.

That rate is scheduled to fall to 2.99% by 2028.

That number keeps falling.

4. Tennessee

Tennessee added a net 3,191 retirees in 2025, close enough to North Carolina’s total to call it a near-tie.

National 2026 reporting on that same migration data, from 24/7 Wall St. to Newsweek, puts Tennessee on a short list of just four “halfback” states, alongside South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia, where Florida’s outbound retirees are resettling.

Tennessee is the only one of the four with Florida’s own zero-income-tax setup: No state tax on a paycheck, a pension, Social Security, or a withdrawal from an individual retirement account (IRA).

Property taxes average 0.55% of a home’s value, and the median home costs a good deal less than one in Florida.

Retirees are landing around Chattanooga, the Tri-Cities, and the lake country outside Knoxville.

The mountains cost less than the coast does.

And unlike Florida’s rising insurance renewals, Tennessee’s state tax line has stayed at zero the whole time.

5. Arizona

Arizona posted a net gain of 2,512 retirees in 2025, pulled in largely by a factor that has nothing to do with income tax.

Homeowners insurance in most of Arizona runs $1,500 to $2,500 a year.

The same analysis put Florida’s homeowners insurance as high as $15,000 a year in some parts of the state, nearly six times Arizona’s top end.

Desert heat replaces hurricane risk, and neither Phoenix nor Tucson carries a storm surcharge on its premiums.

No storms, no surcharge.

Arizona still taxes pensions and 401(k) withdrawals, though its flat 2.5% rate is one of the lowest in the country, and Social Security stays untouched.

Once you count housing, the overall cost of living runs a little higher than Florida’s, so the math favors retirees who own their home outright, insurance bill and all.

6. Alabama

Alabama’s net gain of 1,828 retirees in 2025 doesn’t sound as dramatic as South Carolina’s, but retirees settling into Foley show where the momentum’s headed.

Retirees are increasingly skipping Florida altogether and heading straight for Alabama’s Gulf Coast, according to the senior-living operator Community Senior Life, drawn by cheaper homes and a lower cost of living than Florida’s coastal counties.

A 2024 Redfin survey found that roughly 70% of Florida homeowners had experienced rising insurance costs or coverage changes, the kind of instability Alabama’s Gulf Coast has largely avoided.

Alabama exempts Social Security from state tax completely and lets retirees 65 and older exclude the first $12,000 of retirement plan withdrawals, doubled from $6,000 under a 2022 law that phased in the increase starting January 1, 2026.

Its property taxes average just 0.38%, the second-lowest rate in the nation behind Hawaii, per the same WalletHub analysis.

The coast costs less.

Gulf Shores and Foley offer the same warm-water coastline Florida’s Panhandle does, a short drive rather than a state line away.

7. Georgia

Georgia closed out 2025 with a net gain of 1,646 retirees.

Newsweek’s June 2026 analysis of that same migration data names Georgia one of four states drawing Florida’s outbound retirees, alongside South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

Many of those retirees want to stay close enough to visit family still living in Florida, without carrying Florida’s property-insurance bill.

Georgia taxes most retirement income at a flat 4.99%, cut from 5.19% under a law Governor Brian Kemp signed in May 2026, and retirees 65 and older can exclude up to $65,000 of it, with Social Security untouched entirely.

That exclusion alone erases the tax bill for many retirees living on Social Security plus a modest pension.

Property taxes average 0.81%, close to Florida’s own 0.79%, so Georgia isn’t winning purely on the tax line.

Retirees who land near Atlanta gain access to its major hospital systems, while others choose smaller cities like Savannah and Macon for a slower pace and a lower cost of living.

Psst! See exactly how these seven states stack up against Florida on taxes, property costs, and home prices. Sort the table below by whichever number matters most to you.

Why Florida’s Own Costs Keep Rising

Florida’s own numbers explain why retirees are running the math somewhere else.

Insurance costs are the tell.

Homeowners insurance premiums in Florida rose 75% between 2021 and 2025, more than double the 38% national increase over the same stretch, according to the public radio and TV station WUSF.

That’s on top of a premium that already ran higher than any other state’s before the increase started.

A 2022 law born from the deadly Surfside condo collapse now requires milestone structural inspections and fully funded reserves for condo buildings three stories and taller.

One Miami condo owner told the television network CBS News her building charged a $6,900 assessment just to replace a roof, on top of a monthly fee that had already risen.