KVIG Informative

For the first time in years, not a single one of Nevada’s 17 counties saw an increase in international migration. Economists say the drop-off could shape the state’s labor force for years to come.

International migration to Nevada dropped sharply in 2025, with none of the state’s 17 counties recording an increase in international arrivals compared with the year before, according to a Nevada Independent analysis of U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

Roughly 10,500 people moved to Nevada from outside the United States in the year ending last July, less than half the number recorded the year before. Almost all of the decline was concentrated in Clark County, the state’s most populous region.

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Immigrants make up about a quarter of Nevada’s workforce, roughly 400,000 workers, and contribute an estimated $20.2 billion to the state’s economy annually, according to figures cited by U.S. Rep. Susie Lee at a November forum on the issue hosted by FWD.us and Dream Big Nevada.

Brian Bonnenfant, a researcher at UNR’s Center for Regional Studies, described the effect of reduced immigrant labor as a double-edged sword. He said wages should rise as competition for workers increases when immigrant labor is reduced, even as the reduction strains industries that depend heavily on that labor supply.

An economic analysis from FWD.us modeled how reduced legal immigration, fewer work permits and increased deportation activity could affect labor supply and prices nationally through 2028, projecting that producer prices for most food products could rise by roughly 14.5% and construction costs by about 6.1% as a direct result of immigration policy changes.

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Nevada’s declining domestic migration compounds the effect of the international slowdown. With fewer people arriving in the state from either abroad or other parts of the country, economists say the labor pool feeding Nevada’s tourism, hospitality and construction industries is shrinking from multiple directions at once.

Nevada’s economy was built by newcomers — international and domestic alike. The census data doesn’t show why fewer of them are arriving, but the counties across the state that all moved in the same direction this year, for the first time, suggest the answer isn’t really a mystery.