Is Columbus, Ohio Still Growing? Census 2025 Numbers by County and Suburb

Columbus is growing, and the number is about 1 percent a year. The Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 estimates, released this year, put the ten-county Columbus metro at 2,242,028 people on July 1, 2025. That is 21,312 more than a year earlier, a 0.96 percent gain, and 4.82 percent more than the April 2020 count. The earlier version of this post said 1.5 to 2 percent a year. The Bureau's own series for this metro has not touched 1.5 percent in any year since 2020, and I would rather you plan around the real curve.

The more useful part of the release is not the total. It is where the people went. That map decides which suburbs are building and which are bidding.

How big is Columbus getting?

The City of Columbus is at 938,396, up 7,696 or 0.83 percent in the year. The metro the Census Bureau counts is ten counties: Franklin, Delaware, Fairfield, Hocking, Licking, Madison, Morrow, Perry, Pickaway and Union.

County	July 2025 population	Change 2024 to 2025	One-year growth	Growth since April 2020	Net domestic migration 2025
Madison	46,985	+1,197	2.61%	7.14%	+1,220
Delaware	242,032	+5,169	2.18%	13.02%	+3,718
Union	73,446	+1,463	2.03%	16.96%	+1,002
Pickaway	62,978	+771	1.24%	7.57%	+786
Fairfield	169,752	+2,046	1.22%	6.82%	+1,767
Morrow	36,305	+297	0.82%	3.86%	+257
Franklin	1,361,536	+8,880	0.66%	2.85%	-7,191
Licking	185,564	+1,224	0.66%	3.96%	+1,001
Perry	35,918	+213	0.60%	1.42%	+227
Hocking	27,512	+52	0.19%	-1.92%	+134
Metro	2,242,028	+21,312	0.96%	4.82%	+2,921

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 county population estimates, released 2026. Net domestic migration is people moving in from elsewhere in the United States minus people moving out.

Read the last column. Franklin County added 8,880 people in the year, and it did that while 7,191 more residents moved out to other places in the country than moved in. The county grew on births over deaths (6,591) and arrivals from abroad (9,441). Every other county in the metro had positive domestic migration. A lot of the people leaving Franklin County are not leaving Columbus. They are moving to Delaware, Union, Madison, Fairfield and Pickaway counties, which between them picked up 8,493 net domestic movers.

That is the pressure wave, measured.

Which suburbs are growing and which are not?

The place-level estimates are where the housing story gets specific.

City or village	July 2025 population	One-year change	One-year growth	Growth since April 2020
Powell	18,269	+1,083	6.30%	28.14%
Sunbury	8,857	+495	5.92%	33.63%
Grove City	45,180	+1,294	2.95%	9.51%
Delaware	46,636	+1,177	2.59%	12.93%
Marysville	30,190	+720	2.44%	17.85%
Pickerington	26,333	+470	1.82%	14.14%
Gahanna	35,986	+481	1.35%	0.72%
Reynoldsburg	43,350	+577	1.35%	5.54%
Columbus	938,396	+7,696	0.83%	3.55%
Canal Winchester	10,058	+79	0.79%	10.26%
New Albany	11,803	+80	0.68%	5.74%
Hilliard	38,898	+230	0.59%	4.68%
Dublin	49,094	-165	-0.33%	-0.44%
Upper Arlington	35,893	-166	-0.46%	-2.41%
Worthington	14,543	-72	-0.49%	-1.60%
Westerville	38,165	-206	-0.54%	-2.61%

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 subcounty population estimates for Ohio. City limits only; a Powell or Westerville mailing address in an unincorporated township is counted in the township, not the city.

Two different Columbus suburbs are in that table.

The first kind is adding people because it is adding houses. Powell, Sunbury, Delaware, Marysville, Grove City and Pickerington all have land, active subdivisions and builders with lots. Powell is up 28 percent since 2020 and Sunbury 34 percent. When you see a suburb growing 3 to 6 percent a year, you are looking at new construction, and the buyer's question there is which builder and which phase, which is a different conversation than which resale.

The second kind is not adding people because it cannot. Westerville, Dublin, Upper Arlington and Worthington are built out. A city that is losing a few hundred residents a year while its home prices rise is a city where households are getting smaller and the housing stock is fixed. Demand for those addresses does not show up in the Census. It shows up in days on market and in how far over asking the winning offer lands. I have written up which Columbus suburbs are selling over asking this year, and the top of that list is this table's bottom: 56 percent of Worthington's 2026 sales closed over asking, 47 percent of Upper Arlington's, 38 percent of Westerville's and 35 percent of Dublin's.

Gahanna and New Albany sit in between. Gahanna added 481 people in the year after being flat for four. New Albany is growing slowly on a small base.

What is driving the growth?

The components in the county file answer this better than a list of employers.

The metro added 21,312 people in the year. Of that, 7,453 was births over deaths, 10,968 was net arrivals from outside the country, and 2,921 was net arrivals from elsewhere in the United States. The metro grows because more people are born here than die here, because it draws people from abroad, and because it draws people from the rest of the country, in that order of size.

The domestic number is the one to watch. It was positive for the metro and negative for Franklin County, which means the metro's pull from the rest of the country is being absorbed entirely by the collar counties, and then some. Ohio State, the insurance and banking employers, the hospitals, the logistics base along the interstates: those are why people come. Where they buy is Delaware, Union, Madison, Fairfield and Pickaway.

Intel's Ohio One campus in Licking County is still on a delayed timeline into the 2030s. Licking County grew 0.66 percent in the year, the same rate as Franklin. The Intel demand wave is not in these numbers yet. Everything above happened without it.

How does population growth create suburban housing pressure?

Population growth does not stay downtown. What the 2025 estimates show, and what I see operating across the Columbus metro, is an outward pressure wave.

The urban core absorbs growth first and prices rise. Households that want proximity to the core but cannot absorb core pricing move to the inner-ring suburbs, which are built out, so those prices rise without the population moving. The households that get priced out of the inner ring go to where lots are being platted. That is the Powell, Sunbury, Delaware, Marysville and Grove City line in the table, and it is the negative domestic migration line for Franklin County.

Here is where it lands in practice.

Westerville is capturing demand for an established, walkable uptown alongside more square footage than Columbus proper offers at the same budget. The city lost 206 residents in the year and has almost no greenfield left. That combination is why a well-priced Westerville listing draws multiple offers. The city's 2026 zoning updates on accessory dwellings, infill and missing-middle housing are a direct acknowledgment that the only way to add households inside the line is to add units to lots that already exist.

Gahanna is absorbing spillover from multiple directions at once: buyers priced out of New Albany, buyers who need airport proximity, buyers who find Olde Gahanna and get walkable character at a discount to Westerville or Dublin pricing. Its 481-person gain in the year is the first real growth it has shown since 2020.

Dublin remains the destination for buyers oriented to the northwest side of the metro, with a mature luxury housing stock and, at 49,094 people, no population growth to show for it. Demand there is price, not headcount. Always confirm the assigned school for a specific Dublin address directly with the district, because Dublin addresses fall in more than one.

Delaware County, meaning Powell, Lewis Center, Sunbury, Delaware city and the townships around them, is where the metro's growth is physically going. The county added 5,169 people in the year, more than Franklin County added per capita by a factor of three, and 3,718 of them were net domestic movers. The tradeoff is longer commutes and school districts that are building to keep up.

Union County and Marysville are the same story on the northwest side: 2.03 percent county growth, 17 percent since 2020, Marysville up 720 in a year.

Licking County including Pataskala and the Hebron corridor is the furthest-out wave, and for now it is growing at the Franklin County rate. Buyers positioning for Intel-adjacent appreciation are buying ahead of the numbers, which is a fine strategy with a long clock on it.

Why is housing supply not keeping up in Columbus?

Even at 1 percent a year, 21,000 people is roughly 8,000 to 9,000 households, and the metro does not permit that many new homes in a year. That gap accumulates, and it is the structural floor under Central Ohio prices.

Builders are not hitting the middle of the market. Labor, materials and land have made it hard to deliver housing at entry and mid-range price points, so builders build what pencils, which is the upper tier. The growth suburbs in the table are adding houses mostly above the metro median.

Rate lock-in is suppressing resale inventory. Owners on 3 percent mortgages are reluctant to trade into 6 or 7 percent ones, which compresses the resale supply that would normally circulate. That is why Columbus inventory has stayed tight through 2026 even with the population curve flattening.

The built-out suburbs cannot add units. Westerville, Dublin, Upper Arlington and Worthington lost population in the year and are still among the most competitive resale markets in the metro. When a city's housing stock is fixed, every new household that wants in has to buy out an existing one.

What does this mean for Columbus property values?

Columbus has appreciated substantially across the metro since 2019. That is not a bubble. It is the output of a metro that has grown every year since 2020 competing for a housing supply that grows slower.

For buyers, waiting for a dramatic correction means betting against a growth curve that has been positive every single year in the Census series, even in 2021, the slowest year, at 0.22 percent. Steady is more plausible than either a collapse or a return to 2021-era annual gains.

For sellers in the built-out suburbs, the floor under your value is arithmetic: fixed stock, more households wanting in than leaving. For sellers in the growth suburbs, your competition is the builder down the road, and the Columbus seller's market data for 2026 shows how differently those two markets are behaving.

For investors, the thesis is intact: buy in a growing metro with constrained supply and diversified employment. The 2025 numbers say to buy it in the collar counties if you want population growth and in the inner ring if you want scarcity.

Which Columbus suburbs are best positioned for the next five to ten years?

The communities that will hold up best share a specific set of characteristics, and the Census table is a first screen for them.

Fixed stock with active city investment. Westerville's redevelopment and zoning agenda is the clearest example. A built-out city that is adding units through infill is manufacturing scarcity value on purpose. Learning to read Columbus neighborhood appreciation trends is how you spot those corridors early.

Growth with infrastructure. Powell and Delaware are growing fast and building roads, water and schools to match. The risk in a 6 percent growth town is that the infrastructure lags the rooftops. The reward is that you bought before the amenities arrived.

Employment corridor proximity. The New Albany corridor, Dublin's corporate campus cluster and, eventually, the Licking County semiconductor supply chain are the residential demand anchors.

School district information. The Columbus suburban ring includes Westerville City, Dublin City, Olentangy Local, New Albany-Plain Local, Gahanna-Jefferson and Hilliard City, among others. Always confirm the assigned school for a specific address directly with the district, because district boundaries do not follow city limits or neighborhood names.

Common questions I get on Columbus growth

Is Columbus real estate overpriced in 2026? Relative to coastal markets, no, and relative to its own recent history some segments have moderated from the 2021 and 2022 peaks while others are firm. A metro growing 1 percent a year on a housing stock growing slower than that does not support a bubble thesis.

Will Columbus home prices keep going up? No market appreciates in a straight line. But the drivers, positive growth every year since 2020, constrained supply and diversified employment, are not reversing in the near term.

How does Intel's delay affect the growth trajectory? The 2025 estimates show the metro growing without it. Licking County is growing at the Franklin County rate, not faster. When the campus timeline firms up, Licking County becomes a different table.

Which Columbus suburbs are growing fastest? Powell, 6.3 percent in a year. Sunbury, 5.9 percent. Grove City, Delaware, Marysville and Pickerington between 1.8 and 3 percent. Every one of them is a new-construction market first.

The read

The growth is real and it is about 1 percent a year, not 2. It is landing in Delaware, Union, Madison, Fairfield and Pickaway counties as new rooftops, and it is landing in Westerville, Dublin, Upper Arlington and Worthington as competition for the rooftops that already exist. Which of those two markets you are buying or selling in changes the strategy more than any other single fact about the metro.

If you want a market-specific conversation about how this picture should inform a buying, selling or investing decision anywhere across the Columbus metro, book a time at calendly.com/adam-geuy or call me directly at 937-239-2919.

Adam Geuy, Realtor, Blacktree Realty. License #2020007964. ABR, PSA, SRS.