These ZIP codes noticed a spike in residents from San Francisco in the course of the pandemic

San Franciscans were more likely to migrate from the city during the pandemic than in 2019, causing the number of new arrivals from San Francisco to skyrocket in affordable, less crowded cities across the region. Many areas saw more than twice the number of new arrivals from San Francisco in 2020 than the previous year.

The Chronicle received data from the U.S. Postal Service about the number of households who changed their address from one San Francisco zip code to all other U.S. zip codes. The data shows that of the 20 zip codes that saw the largest increase in moving companies in San Francisco in August 2020, 19 were 19 year-over-year in California. We chose to analyze data from August as it was the height of the pandemic migration from San Francisco.

Truckee, a mountain town near Lake Tahoe in Nevada County, had the largest percentage increase in households in San Francisco. The city’s primary zip code gained nearly 130 new households in San Francisco in August 2020, compared to 11 new households in August 2019, an increase almost twelve times.

The finding confirms real estate agent reports that home sales in the Truckee-Lake Tahoe area rose sharply last summer, likely due to the desire of many Bay Area residents to get closer to nature and find new opportunities to work from home.

Other places that gained popularity during the pandemic were the cities of Danville, Union City, and Fremont in the East Bay. In Southern California, San Diego and Palm Springs zip codes were high on the list.

The results add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that the “CalExodus” – the narrative advanced by wealthy tech executives like Elon Musk, is moving Californians to tax havens with fewer public health restrictions during the pandemic fleeing the state – is largely a myth. Previous research by the California Policy Lab found that most Bay Area residents who moved in the first three quarters of 2020 were moving to other parts of the state at higher rates during the San Francisco pandemic.

In addition, a recent Chronicle analysis found that the majority of Bay Area residents who moved from March to November 2020 went to other locations in the Bay Area or elsewhere in California.

In contrast, many urban areas in other states have seen dramatic decreases in the number of moving companies in San Francisco. Chelsea, an affluent neighborhood in New York’s Manhattan borough, received 70% fewer requests for address changes from San Francisco in August 2020 than in the previous year. The Boston, Seattle, and Denver neighborhoods saw fewer new arrivals from San Francisco last August than in 2019.

Houston was the only city outside of California with a zip code that made it into the top 20. The zip code 77043 west of downtown Houston was the 15th most frequent travel destination, seeing a 300% increase in address change requests from San Francisco households in August 2020 year over year.

Methodological note: The data analyzed by The Chronicle compared movements from San Francisco to the destination’s zip codes from March to November 2019 and 2020 month on month. USPS only provided change of address counts for county to zip code groupings with more than 10 movements. As a result, data was missing for many postcodes in months with fewer moves. Because of this limitation, we decided to only analyze address change data from August 2019 and 2020 when the movement peaked. The following table lists all of the postcodes that had 11 or more San Francisco migrants in August 2019 and 2020:

Susie Neilson is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: susan.neilson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @susieneilson