Asheville, Buncombe County lose residents as North Carolina grows

Asheville and Buncombe County are shrinking even as North Carolina keeps adding people, a reversal that puts the region’s storm recovery and longer-term stability under a sharper spotlight.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 estimates show Asheville’s population falling from 94,992 on July 1, 2024, to 93,523 on July 1, 2025, a drop of 1,469 people, or about 1.5%. Buncombe County fell from 279,210 to 277,417 over the same period, a decline of 1,793 residents, or about 0.6%.

That matters because Buncombe had grown steadily for more than two decades. Even with the 2025 loss, the county remained 3.0% above its April 1, 2020 estimates base. Asheville, by contrast, was still 1.3% below its 2020 base, underscoring how the city has lagged the county since the pandemic era.

The contrast with the rest of the state is stark. The Census Bureau said U.S. population growth slowed to 0.5% from July 2024 to July 2025, but North Carolina still grew. Buncombe’s decline therefore stands out not just as a local dip but as part of a sharper west-of-the-state trend.

The numbers also reflect how much of Buncombe’s population sits outside Asheville’s city limits. North Carolina’s Office of State Budget and Management estimated in 2023 that 156,000 people lived in unincorporated Buncombe County, compared with 97,000 in Asheville. Across the 25 federally disaster-designated counties in western North Carolina, the state estimated 1.8 million people lived there in 2023, with 64% in unincorporated areas.

Helene remains part of that backdrop. The Census Bureau has described Hurricane Helene as one of the most catastrophic hurricanes in American history and has created recovery-data products to study its effects. North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services reported 43 storm-related deaths in Buncombe County as of April 2, 2025.

Buncombe’s 2025 decline was the county’s first population loss in decades, according to local reporting, and it was not alone. Mitchell, McDowell and Swain counties also lost residents, even as other parts of North Carolina continued to grow. For Asheville and Buncombe, the latest census estimates show a region still rebuilding, still counting losses, and still trying to reverse the slide.