The Utah Population Committee released new state and county population estimates Thursday. The July 1, 2024, estimates are based on people who usually live in an area and don’t include seasonal residents or tourists.
Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute Senior Demographer Emily Harris said Utah’s growth is slowing and stabilizing.
According to the data, Utah’s population growth continued to be strong but slowed to 1.5% in 2024 compared to 1.6% in 2023. The Beehive State now has over 3.5 million residents, an increase of over 50,000 from the previous year.
Harris said that’s a moderate rate of population growth that’s split between net migration – the number of people moving in and out of Utah — and natural increase, or deaths minus births. The split, she said, shows the COVID-19 pandemic is no longer impacting population numbers.
“Demographically speaking, COVID-19 is in the rearview mirror, especially as we're looking at natural increase returning to these pre-pandemic levels,” Harris said.
Wasatch County was one of Utah’s fastest-growing counties according to the 2024 count. Over 70% of the county’s growth was due to net migration, with a population increase of almost 900 people. That’s a growth rate of 2%, following trends in Piute, Utah, Washington, Rich and Iron counties.
Tooele County experienced the fastest growth at over 3%. Like last year, Utah County added the most to Utah’s population, accounting for over 43% of the state’s growth.
However, Harris said over the past few years, more counties have been experiencing population decline. According to the 2024 count, eight counties' populations declined. That includes Summit County, where the population declined by almost 200 people. That’s about a half percent decrease.
Harris said there could be a few reasons for this.
“When people are moving the likelihood that they're moving to another county within the state is higher than leaving the state,” she said. “It can also just be that maybe at this point, less people are moving in than they were last year or two years ago.”
While Summit County had 273 more births than deaths, over 450 people left the county.
