Report: NY, Idaho among feeder states for Sarasota, Manatee growth

One way to tell who’s moving to the Sunshine State and from where comes from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, which handles driver’s licenses. 

Through out-of-state driver's license exchanges, it tracks when new Florida residents obtain a Florida license after moving, providing the origin state and destination county. Recently, Florida Realtors released 2025 out-of-state driver’s license exchange data for Sarasota and Manatee counties, showing some patterns and trends.

More than 1,400 residents from New York moved to Sarasota County in 2025 based on driver's license exchanges, while more than 1,300 New York residents relocated to Manatee County, meaning the Empire State was the top source of new residents for both jurisdictions last year. Rounding out the top five sources of new residents for both counties were foreign or U.S. territories, New Jersey, Illinois and Pennsylvania, according to the report.

Top states for Sarasota County driver's license exchanges in 2025:

1. New York: 1,426
2. U.S. territory or foreign: 1,344
3. New Jersey: 970
4. Illinois: 814
5. Pennsylvania: 744
6. Massachusetts: 676
7. Ohio: 664
8. California: 616
9. Michigan: 490
10. Texas: 464

Top states for Manatee County driver's license exchanges in 2025:

1. New York: 1,332
2. U.S. territory or foreign: 1,209
3. New Jersey: 775
4. Illinois: 699
5. Pennsylvania: 662
6. Ohio: 627
7. Texas: 556
8. California: 526
9. Georgia: 484
10. Massachusetts: 469

To give an idea of how post-pandemic patterns have shaped the region, the driver's license data also compares 2025 exchanges to the average annual totals from 2016 through 2019. In both Sarasota and Manatee counties, the numbers show that states in the West are increasingly becoming sources of new residents.

Four places saw a more than 100% increase in annual driver’s license exchanges. In Sarasota, these top origin states were Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. In Manatee County, the origin locations that saw a more than 100% increase in driver’s license exchanges were Washington, U.S. territory or foreign, Idaho and Utah.

“These numbers confirm what Realtors see every day in the field,” David Crawford, president of the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee and Catalist Realty owner, says in the statement. “Migration is no longer limited to a few feeder states. We are attracting new residents from nearly every corner of the country.”