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The IRS Migration Database is a resource designed created for analyzing historical state to state and county to county migration in the United States. The data was compiled and harmonized from the IRS SOI U.S. Population Migration Data into one SQLite database. A number of free tools exist (like the SQLite Manager) for viewing and manipulating SQLite databases.
Each database record represents the number of tax filers who moved from one county to another county, or from one state to another state, each year. Other attributes include the number of exemptions and total income of the filers who moved. States and counties are identified using ANSI / FIPS codes. For each year there is an inflow and an outflow table, as well as summary or totals tables. There are also four sample views that illustrate how the database can be queried.
While this data can be used to study migration of households (using filers) or individuals (using exemptions) there are limitations with the data that users must be aware of: see our documentation (below), the IRS documentation (on their website and included with the database downloads), and other studies for examples. The IRS implemented a number of methodological improvements beginning in 2011-12 which would impact any comparisons before and after that time period.
| Name | File Type | Download | Metadata |
|---|---|---|---|
| State to State Database (1988-2013) | sqlite | nyc_gdb_jan2017a.zip | XML |
| County to County Database (1990-2013) | sqlite | intro_nycgdb_foss.pdf | XML |
| Brief User Guide | nyc_gdb_jan2017b.zip | ||
| Changes in Definitions | doc | intro_nycgdb_arc.pdf | |
| Workflow Documentation | doc | ||
| (All documentation, including additional files, are included within each ZIP file for each database) | |||
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