Regional Snapshot: Population Estimates for 2025: Gradual Growth

The Atlanta Regional Commission has done population estimates, for its (varying) member counties and the City of Atlanta, for seven decades now–since 1955. The estimates are done primarily as a base to assess member government dues for the next calendar year, but they also serve as a key benchmark indicator for the Atlanta area’s economic development momentum. For 2024-2025, the 11-county region added population added 64,400 persons– that’s up a tad up from the 62,700 increase of last year (2023-2024). The region’s population growth, consistently steady since the pandemic slowdown, continues to fall short of the growth levels in the “heydays” of the early 2000s, late 2010s, and certainly, the 1990s.

Behind the ‘headline’ (above) are these ‘highlights’ below. A summary table is provided in Figure 1 that follows. For much more detail than the highlights, access this slide deck directly or scroll down (below the ‘bullet points’ and the data in Figure 1) to access that same slide deck via slideshare.

• The 11-county Atlanta region is now home to 5,285,474 residents in 2025, up from 5,221,074 in 2024. From April 1, 2024 to April 1, 2025 the region added 64,400 new residents. This represents a slight uptick of overall regional population growth compared to the 62,700 increase in 2023-24, but still trails the average annual increase of 68,245 in the 2010s, and lags the post-pandemic 2022-23 increase of 66,730.

• In 2024, there were 29,482 new residential building permits in the 11-county region, which was a small increase of about 900 permits from 2023 calendar year totals of 28,595. Current building permit activity for the 11-county region remains lower than pre-Great Recession permit levels and remains below the 1980-2023 average annual level of 33,340.
• The slight uptick of growth 2024-25 reflects a small increase in permit activity and continued (but slowing) growth in our job base. Housing supply remains very low– and as such prices as a result have stayed very high—which does act as a brake on population growth (particularly in terms of domestic migration). Single-family permits remain constrained compared to the historical averages. Multifamily permit levels held steady 2024-2025, but lagged the very strong increases seen in 2022-23.
• From 2024 to 2025, Fulton added 18,800 new residents, for the largest single-year county-level numeric increase in the region. Next were Gwinnett with 15,200 new residents, Cherokee with 7,100 new residents, and Forsyth with 6,700 new residents. The City of Atlanta continued to set the pace (within the leading county of Fulton) with a net increase of 10,600. Growth in the City did moderate from the record-high levels (14,300) of 2022-23 and also fell slightly from 2023-24’s 10,800 increase.

• The 2024-25 increase still nearly matches the highest year-over-year increase of the 1990-2022 period (the net increase of 10,900 in 2018-19). Cherokee and Forsyth Counties led the region in percentage increase 2023-24, at 2.4 percent. Henry follows at 1.8, with Fulton and Gwinnett following at 1.7 and 1.5, respectively. The 2024-25 growth rate in Forsyth is notable, as it compares to a 1.6% increase 2023-24.