International migration drove US population growth in 2022

The U.S. population expanded by 1.2 million people this year, with growth largely driven by international migration, and the nation now has 333.2 million residents, according to estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Net international migration — the number of people moving into the U.S. minus the number of people leaving — was more than 1 million residents from 2021 to 2022. That represented a growth rate of 168% over the previous year's 376,029 international migrants, with every state gaining residents from abroad, according to the 2022 population estimates.

Natural growth — the number of births minus the number of deaths — added another 245,080 people to the total in what was the first year-over-year increase in total births since 2007.

This year's U.S. annual growth rate of 0.4% was a rebound of sorts from the 0.1% growth rate during the worst of the pandemic from 2020 to 2021, which was the lowest since the nation's founding.