ANCHORAGE, Alaska (ALASKA BEACON) - Alaska’s population rose slightly between 2024 and 2025 and is now at its highest level since 2017, the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development announced Wednesday.

According to James Brooks with the Alaska Beacon, Alaska had an estimated 738,737 people as of July 1, 2025, the department said in its annual state population estimate. That’s up 1,649 people from the department’s July 2024 population estimate of 737,088.

The rise comes despite a revision that erased thousands of international immigrants that the U.S. Census mistakenly believed had moved to Alaska.

Last year, relying on Census figures showing that thousands of people had migrated to Alaska from other countries, the department in July 2024 estimated Alaska’s population at more than 741,000 people.

Since then, and after prodding from Alaska state demographer David Howell, the Census Bureau retroactively lowered the number of international migrants that came to Alaska, and this year’s population estimate is significantly lower than last year’s but higher than the state’s revised 2024 figure.

“We think (that) is more accurate given that people crossing the southern border aren’t very often making their way to Alaska,” Howell said.

With the extra residents removed and a new baseline in place, the state’s population grew on a year-over-year basis because the number of births in the state exceeded the number of Alaskans who died.

That natural increase — births minus deaths — of 3,389 people was greater than the number of people who moved out of the state.

Between 2024 and 2025, 1,740 more people moved out of Alaska than moved here. It was the 13th consecutive year of negative net migration in Alaska, extending the longest streak of negative net migration since 1945.

Overall, the state’s population grew by 0.22%. That was less than the nation as a whole (0.5%). Compared with the other 49 states and the District of Columbia, Alaska’s population growth ranked 40th.