How Texas's Population Has Changed Since 1990

Texas added more residents in 2024 than any other state in the country. It has done so in most years since 1990. The current Texas state page shows a population of 30,188,424, up from 16,986,510 in 1990 - a gain of 13.2 million people in 35 years. For context, that is larger than the entire current population of Illinois, and Texas added it on top of a base that was already the second largest state in the country. Understanding how that happened requires looking at the full arc of the data, not just the recent headlines.

1990 to 2000: the foundation decade

Texas in 1990 had 16,986,510 residents, a median household income of $27,016, and a median home value of $58,900. The state was coming out of the late-1980s oil bust that had devastated the Houston economy and sent real estate values sharply downward across the state. The recovery through the 1990s was driven by economic diversification - Austin's tech sector beginning to take shape, Dallas growing as a financial and telecom hub, and Houston rebuilding its employment base beyond energy into healthcare and logistics.

By 2000 Texas had grown to 20,851,820 residents, adding nearly 3.9 million people - a 22.8% increase in a single decade. Median household income reached $39,927 and median home value crossed $77,800. The 1990 Census data showed that immigration accounted for at least 40% of Texas's growth in that period when the US citizen children born to immigrants are included, according to an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies. The demographic foundation being laid in this decade - a large, young, and growing Hispanic population concentrated in Harris, Bexar, Dallas, and Tarrant counties - would compound through every subsequent decade.

Houston grew from 1,630,672 to 1,953,631 in this decade, San Antonio from 935,927 to 1,144,646, and Austin from 465,577 to 656,562. Fort Worth nearly doubled in the decades that followed its 1990 base of 447,619, reaching 534,694 by 2000 as the DFW metro began absorbing large volumes of corporate relocations and domestic migrants.

2000 to 2010: accelerating growth through recession

The decade from 2000 to 2010 added another 4.3 million residents, bringing Texas to 25,145,561. This was the decade that established Texas as the dominant growth story in American demographics - the state grew by 20.6% even through the 2008-2009 recession that caused population stagnation or decline in much of the Rust Belt, the Northeast, and California.

The recession that hit Texas was milder than the national average because the energy sector, while volatile, was in a strong cycle through most of the decade, and the state's housing market had not experienced the same speculative bubble that collapsed in Florida, Nevada, and California. Texas home prices rose modestly and did not crash. That relative stability made Texas look attractive to households leaving harder-hit states, accelerating the domestic migration that had been building since the 1990s.

State demographer Lloyd Potter identifies what he calls the demographic triangle - with Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin, and Houston as the points - as the areas growing most significantly, according to Texas Standard. That triangle captured nearly all of the state's net population growth in the 2000s. The suburban counties surrounding those metros - Collin, Williamson, and Hays counties - began their transformation from agricultural and exurban land into the fastest-growing suburban counties in the country.

2010 to 2020: the boom decade

Texas grew from 25,145,561 to 29,145,505 between 2010 and 2020, adding another 4 million residents. Median household income rose from $49,646 to $63,826, and median home value climbed from $123,500 to $187,200, still well below the national median despite a decade of strong appreciation. The poverty rate fell from 16.8% to 14.2%, a meaningful improvement that reflected rising wages across the income distribution.

The Hispanic population growth story accelerated sharply in this decade. Texas's Hispanic population grew by more than 2 million since 2010, and the state's demographer predicted Hispanics would become the state's largest population group by mid-2021, according to the Texas Tribune. The annual growth in Hispanic residents outpaced the combined growth among white, Black, and Asian residents every year since 2010. This demographic shift is visible in the city-level data: San Antonio, where the Hispanic share of the population exceeds 60%, grew from 1,144,646 to over 1.4 million. Laredo, which is more than 95% Hispanic, continued its steady growth as a binational trade hub.

The suburban growth story of the 2010s is best captured by two Collin County cities. Frisco grew from roughly 116,000 in 2010 to over 200,000 by 2020, adding more than 80,000 residents in a decade. McKinney followed a similar trajectory, going from around 131,000 to over 195,000. These are not bedroom suburbs - both cities built their own employment bases, school districts, and retail infrastructure, functioning as cities within the Dallas metro rather than simply commuter appendages.

Austin defined the decade's national narrative about Texas. The city grew from 790,390 in 2010 to 961,855 in 2020, with median household income rising from $51,349 to $71,576 and home values going from $189,100 to $392,500. The tech industry's arrival - Tesla, Apple, Oracle, and dozens of startups choosing Austin over California's higher taxes and costs - made the city internationally visible as a growth destination in a way that Houston and Dallas never quite achieved despite being significantly larger.

2020 to today: still growing, but changing

Texas has grown from 29,145,505 in 2020 to 30,188,424 today, adding roughly 1.04 million residents in four years. The current median household income is $78,476, median home value has risen to $283,800, and the poverty rate has continued its long decline to 13.8%.

Texas led the US in population growth in the most recent year, adding 391,243 residents to bring the state's total to 31.7 million, according to the AOL report on Census Bureau data. Of those new Texas residents, 167,475 arrived from abroad. The state's 1.2% growth rate ranked fourth nationally behind South Carolina, Idaho, and North Carolina, reflecting a modest deceleration from the pandemic-era peak but still among the strongest growth rates of any large state.

The post-pandemic period has seen some moderation of the domestic migration wave. Austin's home values peaked above $600,000 median in 2022 before pulling back significantly as interest rates rose, and the city has seen some net domestic outmigration as its affordability advantage over coastal markets narrowed. The Austin metro is still growing, but at a slower pace than the 2020-2022 peak. The Dallas and Houston metros have proven more durable because their economies are more diversified and their housing markets never ran as hot as Austin's.

The demographic shift that defines the next Texas

The demographic story underneath the population numbers is as significant as the raw growth. Texas in 1990 was approximately 61% non-Hispanic white, 25% Hispanic, 12% Black, and 2% Asian. Today the state is approximately 39% non-Hispanic white, 40% Hispanic, 12% Black, and 5% Asian. Texas has gone from a majority-white state to a plurality-Hispanic state in 35 years, driven by a combination of immigration, higher birth rates in the Hispanic community, and the aging of the non-Hispanic white population.

Hispanics under 25 years old are currently the largest demographic group in Texas, and by 2050 the Hispanic population is projected to be the largest racial and ethnic group in every age category, according to Texas 2036's population growth analysis. The political and economic implications of that shift are still playing out, but the Census data makes the trajectory clear: the Texas of 2050 will look demographically very different from the Texas of 1990, even if the growth rate and the economic model remain consistent.

The poverty rate's long decline - from 18.1% in 1990 to 13.8% today - reflects the rising incomes that growth has generated at the median, but also the persistent challenge of a state that has consistently attracted large numbers of low-income immigrants and domestic migrants alongside the high-earning professionals who generate the headline income statistics. Texas's median income of $78,476 sits above the national median, a significant change from 1990 when it lagged. The gap between the state's wealthiest suburbs and its poorest cities has widened over the same period, making Texas simultaneously more prosperous and more unequal.

You can explore the full Texas time series from 1990 to today and compare any Texas city or metro to the statewide trend on the Texas state page, or use the Compare tool to put Texas directly against California, Florida, or any other state.