All 10 N.H. counties are gaining population as people keep moving to the state

People are continuing to move into New Hampshire, fueling a small population increase that was seen in all 10 of the state’s counties in the 12 months leading up to last July, according to new population estimates from the Census Bureau.

“New Hampshire was one of the few states – Maine was another – that had a population increase in all of its counties,” wrote Kenneth Johnson, UNH demographer.

That growth was small: about one-half of one percent between July 2021 and July 2022. It would have been bigger except that most of the state continues to have more deaths than births. Only Hillsborough County had what is called natural increase – slightly more births than deaths – during the period.

Merrimack County and Carroll County had the largest percent gain at 0.92%, said Johnson, a professor of sociology at UNH and senior demographer at the Carsey School of Public Policy.

New Hampshire’s aging local population has been propped up for several years by in-migration, mostly from other states rather than international, but it’s unusual for those gains to extend to the North Country. That may reflect changes in people’s habits caused by the pandemic and the increase in remote work.

Nationally, the estimated U.S. population gained 0.38% during those 12 months. Only half of the counties in the nation gained population in the period.