The U.S. Census may have Buckeye as the fastest growing city in the country, but U-Haul has another top growth city in mind for Arizona.

In the moving giant’s latest list of the top 25 U.S. growth cities, Surprise came in at 18th nationally and tops in Arizona.

It’s 10 places lower than Surprise finished in the 2020 survey, but the city is still the only one in Arizona to make the top 25 list for 2021.

The list was based on U-Haul truck moves throughout the year, according to transactional data compiled for the annual U-Haul Growth Index.

People moving to Surprise in one-way U-Haul trucks rose nearly 10% year-over-year. Departures, meanwhile, increased about 13% from 2020.

Despite the larger percentage in departures, arriving customers still accounted for 52.9% of all one-way U-Haul traffic in Surprise during 2021, making it a leading city for netting do-it-yourself movers.

“Surprise is one of the fastest growing communities in the Phoenix area,” said Jesse Ashdown, U-Haul Company of Northwest Phoenix president. “People are tired of cold weather and want to live somewhere the sun is always shining. Surprise is a warm, welcoming and expanding city. There are good jobs, outdoor activities and affordable housing in Surprise, which has become even more accessible with the addition of the Interstate 303 loop. It makes sense that people are packing up their U-Haul trucks and heading here.”

The Kissimmee-St. Cloud (Florida) corridor is the leading growth city of 2021. The markets of Raleigh-Durham (North Carolina), Palm Bay-Melbourne (Florida), North Port (Florida) and Madison (Wisconsin) round out the top five.

Florida boasts 10 markets among the top 25 growth cities on the U-Haul chart. Texas has five cities on the list, while North Carolina, Wisconsin and California have two apiece.

Growth cities are calculated by the net gain of one-way U-Haul trucks entering a city versus leaving that city in a calendar year. Migration trends data is compiled from well over 2 million one-way U-Haul truck customer transactions that occur annually. Neighboring cities in U-Haul markets are often packaged together for migration trends purposes.

While U-Haul migration trends do not correlate directly to population or economic growth, the U-Haul Growth Index is an effective gauge of how well cities are both attracting and maintaining residents.

Visit myuhaulstory.com to view the top 50 growth states and the top 25 Canadian growth cities.

U-Haul is the authority on migration trends thanks to its expansive network that blankets all 10 provinces and 50 states. The geographical coverage from more than 23,000 U-Haul truck- and trailer-sharing locations provides a comprehensive overview of where people are moving like no one else in the industry.