Tampa Bay’s population continued to grow last year, new data shows, although the rest of Florida grew even faster.
More than 3.4 million people now live in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area, according to estimates released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau — a 1.5% increase from a year earlier.
That means the region — which includes Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando counties — added one new person for every 67 residents.
However, Florida overall outpaced Tampa Bay, growing at an average of 2.04% last year. The U.S. grew by an average of 0.98% in the same time period.
Florida’s growth last year was largely driven by people from other countries moving into the state, according to the Census Bureau. That continues a trend from prior years.
Across the country, many metro areas that shrank or stagnated during the COVID-19 pandemic are rebounding.
The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area, for example, lost 24,000 people from 2020 to 2021. In the last year, it gained 124,000.
But in Tampa Bay, the growth boom of the early 2020s is now beginning to slow.
Pasco had the highest change among the Bay counties — seeing an increase of 3.63%, a gain of over 20,000 residents.
Pinellas was the only county in Tampa Bay or Central Florida to experience a decline. More people died than were born in the county, and the number of people moving into Pinellas didn’t fully offset this decline.
The estimates are as of July 1, 2024, so they don’t account for population shifts or relocations that may have happened as a result of the hurricanes later in the year.
Florida’s foreign-born population makes up one-fifth of the state’s population. Experts say President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ immigration policies could make future population projections more uncertain. The state’s official demographers postponed their population forecasts in February due to these new policies.
The Congressional Budget Office said immigration to the U.S. is expected to slow in the next few years. But, without it, “the population would begin to decline after 2033, in part because fertility rates are projected to remain too low for a generation to replace itself.”