If the United States has had one most consistent and consistent advantage since its founding, it is its ability to attract talent and expand its population. Now, as the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary and the acceptance of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown comes under scrutiny, the United States may hit a historical and economic milestone decades earlier than expected: the first real population decline in U.S. history in 2026, at least according to one well-regarded estimate.
Even if that milestone may not happen this year, there is broad consensus among experts with divided views on immigration: Trump’s second term is accelerating the United States toward a critical inflection point: net immigration into the United States will no longer be enough to offset the decline in births and increases in deaths caused by the aging of the native population. The more Trump tightens immigration, the sooner the U.S. population is likely to plateau or even shrink.
Population accounting itself is straightforward, although collecting conclusive data is not easy. By subtracting the number of deaths from the number of births, and then accounting for inbound and outbound immigration, you can get data on a country's population growth.
Recent studies by researchers at the center-right American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the center-left Brookings Institution suggest that the United States may already be experiencing net negative immigration. They conducted an in-depth analysis of existing data on the inflow and outflow of legal and undocumented foreign workers, and calculated in a latest analysis that the net decrease in the U.S. immigrant population for the entire year of 2025 will range from 10,000 to 295,000. This still means there is likely to be a very small net increase in the overall U.S. population.
However, what is more interesting is the AEI/Brookings team’s estimate for 2026. They predict that U.S. net immigration in 2026 could range from a net increase of 185,000 to a net decrease of 925,000 — a forecast made before the U.S. announced more new restrictions on legal immigration at the beginning of the year.
The authors say the biggest reason for the slowdown in net migration is fewer new arrivals, rather than deportations, which are currently receiving high media attention.
The AEI/Brookings researchers did not further extrapolate the overall impact on the population, but they acknowledged the arithmetic: If their forecast for 2026 falls at the lower end of the range and there is no unprecedented surge in birth rates, the U.S. population will fall by more than 400,000 people. Even in the middle of this forecast range, the United States is at least on the verge of population decline. It seems increasingly likely that in 2026 "our population growth could be near zero or even turn negative," said Tara Watson, director of the Brookings Center for Economic Security and Opportunity and one of the study's co-authors.
Demographers say there has never been a recorded population decline since the U.S. census began in 1790. (The census takes place every 10 years, but the government also releases annual national, state and local population estimates to guide the allocation of funds and other resources.) The only year that might qualify as an "exceptional" was 1918, when the U.S. population was slightly reduced by the Spanish flu and about 2 million U.S. troops were deployed overseas.