Austin attracted 81 corporate headquarters between 2018 and 2024, more per capita than any other U.S. metro. Tesla, Apple, Samsung, and Google have committed over $50 billion in combined local investment. But the pandemic-era relocation frenzy has cooled: the pace dropped from 64 companies in 2022 to just 11 through mid-2024, and office vacancy sits above 25%. Austin’s corporate growth story didn’t stop. It shifted. Semiconductors, defense tech, and life sciences now drive the engine more than California tax refugees.
Austin landed 81 corporate headquarters in six years. That stat comes from CBRE’s 2024 report, and it made national news for good reason: no metro in America pulled more relocations per capita during that window.
But here’s the thing. If you’ve been paying attention to what’s happened since, you know the full picture is more complicated than “everyone’s moving to Austin.”
I track Austin’s apartment market daily: pricing, vacancy, concessions, which employers are hiring and which are cutting. The corporate relocation story I’ve watched unfold over the past two years doesn’t match the version most articles are still telling. Oracle moved its headquarters here in 2020, then announced it’s moving again to Nashville. Meta abandoned nearly a million square feet of Austin office space without ever moving in. Indeed opened a brand-new downtown headquarters in 2023, then cut 4,500 jobs over the next two years. Dell shed roughly 25,000 positions globally and those job losses matter for a company that is headquartered here.
But here’s what also happened: Samsung committed $44 billion to a chip fab 40 miles away. Apple kept building a $1 billion campus in North Austin. A defense-tech startup called Saronic hit a $4 billion valuation building autonomous warships. A de-extinction biotech company became Texas’s first decacorn. And Google finally moved employees into an 804,000-square-foot downtown tower that sat empty for three years.
So what’s actually going on?
The companies moving to Austin in 2026 look different from the ones that arrived in 2020. This is the honest accounting: who came, who expanded, who left, and what’s actually driving Austin’s economy now.
Tesla, Oracle, and the Great Headquarters Migration
Tesla’s move to Austin is the relocation that defined this era. Elon Musk selected a 2,500-acre site near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport for Gigafactory Texas in July 2020. Construction started immediately. Tesla officially relocated its corporate headquarters from Palo Alto in December 2021 and held its “Cyber Rodeo” grand opening in April 2022.
By early 2024, the factory employed 22,777 workers. That made Tesla Austin’s largest private employer, surpassing H-E-B. Total investment has exceeded $5 billion, and Musk estimates the ultimate figure will reach $10 billion. The factory produces Model Y vehicles and Cybertrucks. A data center is under construction on-site to support AI and autonomous driving development.
Then came the cuts. A 2024 layoff round eliminated roughly 2,700 Austin positions, bringing headcount to approximately 21,000 as of early 2025. Even after the cuts, no single employer comes close to Tesla’s footprint in Austin.
Oracle’s story is messier. The database giant announced its headquarters move from Redwood City to Austin in December 2020, settling into a 560,000-square-foot campus on East Riverside Drive along Lady Bird Lake. Then in April 2024, chairman Larry Ellison announced Oracle would relocate its world headquarters again. The destination: Nashville. The rationale: aligning with the company’s healthcare strategy after the $28 billion Cerner acquisition. Oracle is building a $1.35 billion campus on Nashville’s East Bank, though demolition only began in February 2026 and the campus won’t open until approximately 2030.
Here’s the critical detail most articles miss: Oracle has not abandoned Austin. The company maintains 3,000–4,200 employees here and has filed permits for a new office building and a 255-room hotel adjacent to its existing campus. The Nashville move is a headquarters label change, not an Austin exit.
Several other notable headquarters landed in Austin during this window:
| Company | Previous HQ | Year Moved | Employees (Austin) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tesla | Palo Alto, CA | 2021 | ~21,000 | Largest private employer in Austin |
| Oracle | Redwood City, CA | 2020 | 3,000–4,200 | HQ label moving to Nashville; Austin operations remain and expanding |
| Digital Realty Trust | San Francisco, CA | 2021 | — | Fortune 500 data center REIT, $50B+ market cap |
| X (formerly Twitter) | San Francisco, CA | 2024 | ~2,800 | Relocated by Musk after Twitter acquisition |
| Realtor.com | Santa Clara, CA | 2025 | Hundreds (hiring) | 60,000 sq ft East Austin office, plans to hire “many hundreds” more |
| ABBYY | Milpitas, CA | 2024 | — | AI document processing, global HQ |
| PEAK6 | Chicago, IL | 2024 | — | Financial technology firm |
Most of these headquarters came from California, and most arrived during a compressed 2020–2022 window when remote work, high California taxes, and pandemic uncertainty made Texas look like an obvious bet.
Mega-Expansions Reshaping the Austin Skyline and Suburbs
The headquarters relocations got the headlines. But the expansions are where the real money went.
Apple’s 133-acre North Austin campus, announced in 2018 with a $1 billion-plus commitment, represents the company’s largest footprint outside Cupertino. Apple already employs roughly 10,000 people in Austin and has capacity for up to 15,000 workers across 3 million square feet at full buildout. A $400 million construction phase delivering nearly 900,000 square feet was expected to complete in 2025. Apple secured a $25 million Texas Enterprise Fund grant and a 65% Williamson County tax abatement spanning 15 years.
Samsung’s semiconductor fabrication plant in Taylor, Texas is the single largest foreign direct investment in Texas history. Taylor sits roughly 40 miles northeast of Austin. Initially announced at $17 billion in November 2021, the project has grown to an estimated $44 billion as of early 2026. It now spans 1,200 acres with multiple fab modules, R&D facilities, and over 4 million square feet of buildings.
Samsung secured $6.4 billion in federal CHIPS Act funding plus $250 million from the Texas CHIPS Act fund, along with extensive local tax abatements.
So what’s the catch? The project has hit significant delays. Originally targeted for 2024, production has been pushed to late 2026 and could extend into 2027. Samsung pivoted from 4nm to more advanced 2nm process technology and struggled to secure foundry customers. A $16.5 billion AI chip supply contract with Tesla (through 2033) now provides a critical anchor customer. Roughly 1,000 employees began moving into the completed office building in November 2025, and EUV lithography “first light” is expected in early 2026.
Google’s Austin story might be the best illustration of how the post-pandemic office market played out here. Google signed a full-building lease in 2019 for Block 185, a striking 35-story, 804,000-square-foot tower downtown. The building was completed in 2022.
And then it sat empty for three years, costing Google an estimated $53 million annually in rent.
Google finally began moving employees in during late 2025. Cousins Properties acquired the building for $521.8 million in December 2024, making it Austin’s largest office sale that year. Google is marketing the top six floors for sublease while occupying the remainder, adding to its existing 550,000+ square feet across other Austin locations.
| Company | Location | Investment | Square Footage | Jobs (Planned/Current) | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Samsung | Taylor, TX | $44B | 4M+ sq ft across 1,200 acres | Thousands (ramping) | Late 2026–2027 production |
| Apple | North Austin | $1B+ | 3M sq ft at full buildout | Up to 15,000 | Phased, ongoing |
| Tesla Gigafactory | SE Austin (Del Valle) | $5B+ (est. $10B ultimate) | 2,500 acres | ~21,000 | Operational |
| Google (Block 185) | Downtown Austin | $521.8M (building sale price) | 804,000 sq ft | Thousands | Occupying late 2025 |
| Amazon | The Domain, North Austin | — | 330,000+ sq ft new space | 2,000+ new corporate/tech jobs | Active |
| IBM (Domain 12) | The Domain, North Austin | $40M renovation | 320,000 sq ft | — | July 2026 |
| SpaceX | Bastrop | $280M | — | — | Starlink semiconductor R&D |
| NXP Semiconductors | Austin | $290.8M retooling | Existing facilities | 59 new | Active |
| ZT Systems | Georgetown | — | Manufacturing site | ~1,500 | Active |
| Flex/Flextronics | Round Rock | — | 150,000 sq ft factory | Up to 1,200 | Solar microinverter production |
Amazon keeps expanding at The Domain in North Austin, leasing 330,000 square feet of new space on top of existing operations, with plans for 2,000+ corporate and tech jobs alongside its roughly 3,000 current employees. Since 2010, Amazon has created over 70,000 jobs across Texas and invested more than $29 billion statewide.
In a telling office-market shuffle, IBM is taking over Meta’s vacated 320,000-square-foot Domain 12 office. The $40 million renovation should wrap up by July 2026. IBM has been in Austin for 55 years. Meta never moved in.
Who’s Arriving Now: The 2024–2026 Wave
The California-to-Austin pipeline hasn’t dried up, but it’s slowed. The companies showing up look different too. The newest arrivals are international manufacturers, life sciences firms, and financial services companies, not just tech companies fleeing San Francisco.
PEGATRON Corporation, a Taiwanese Fortune Global 500 electronics manufacturer with $35 billion in annual revenue, announced in October 2025 that it would establish its first U.S. manufacturing facility in Georgetown. The company acquired a 168,784-square-foot facility with a minimum $35 million capital investment. PEGATRON builds products for Dell, Tesla, and Apple. It’s here because tariff pressure and supply chain risk made domestic manufacturing a priority.
3billion, a South Korean life sciences company specializing in AI-powered genetic testing for rare diseases, selected Austin for its first U.S. location in February 2026, planning up to 170 engineering and STEM jobs over five years with an $8 million capital investment.
Caracol, an Italian advanced manufacturing company, opened its U.S. headquarters and production center in Austin in September 2025, tripling its capacity to over 10,000 square feet for robotic additive manufacturing platforms.
Craft Ventures, the prominent VC firm co-founded by David Sacks, opened an Austin office in December 2025. Co-founder Bill Lee had already been working from Austin since 2022, and Sacks personally relocated to the city.
Financial services firms have been expanding too. Frost Bank plans to double its Austin-area financial centers by 2026, adding 170 jobs. Sendero, a San Antonio-based wealth management firm, opened its first Austin office. And London-based fintech Wise expanded its Austin operations to a full-stack office with 225 jobs.
| Company | Origin | Industry | Investment | Jobs | Austin Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PEGATRON | Taiwan | Electronics manufacturing | $35M+ | — | Georgetown |
| 3billion | South Korea | Life sciences / AI diagnostics | $8M | 170 | Austin |
| Caracol | Italy | Advanced manufacturing | — | — | Austin (U.S. HQ) |
| Craft Ventures | San Francisco | Venture capital | — | — | Austin |
| Enovis Corporation | — | Medical devices | $25.5M | 162 | Cedar Park |
| Frost Bank | San Antonio | Banking | — | 170 | Multiple Austin locations |
| Wise | London | Fintech | — | 225 | Austin |
That’s a very different mix than 2020. It’s no longer just California tech companies chasing tax savings. You’ve got Taiwanese manufacturers building their first American factories. Korean biotech firms setting up R&D. European fintechs choosing Austin over New York. The pipeline got more international and more varied, even as overall volume dropped.
If you’re relocating to Austin for one of these companies, the apartment search can get complicated fast. That’s especially true if you’re moving from overseas or don’t know the city’s geography. Get on the horn with us at 512-320-4599 and we’ll match you to neighborhoods based on your commute and timeline.
Beyond Tech: The Industry Clusters Driving Austin’s Next Chapter
The “companies moving to Austin” story used to be simple: California tech firms flee taxes and regulations.
That narrative is outdated. Here’s the reality: Austin’s growth now runs on three deep structural clusters that didn’t exist at this scale five years ago.
Defense Technology
Austin’s defense sector grew out of one unusual decision. In July 2018, the U.S. Army placed its modernization command, Army Futures Command, in downtown Austin. Think about that: deliberately embedding the military’s innovation arm inside a tech ecosystem instead of on a military installation. The command contributed an estimated $1.8 billion in economic output to the Texas economy in 2023.
In October 2025, Army Futures Command was deactivated and merged with the Training and Doctrine Command to form the U.S. Army Transformation and Training Command (T2COM). The headquarters remains in Austin. General James Rainey put it plainly: “The Army is not leaving Austin. We’re doubling down on transforming.”
That military presence spawned a defense-tech startup scene that barely existed before 2020:
- Saronic Technologies, founded in Austin in 2022, builds autonomous surface vessels for the Navy. It reached a $4 billion valuation in February 2025 after a $600 million Series C, has raised $845 million total, employs over 700 people, and has acquired more than 520,000 square feet of Austin commercial-industrial space.
- Firefly Aerospace, headquartered in Cedar Park, successfully landed on the Moon in March 2025, holds $230 million in NASA contracts, and filed for a Nasdaq IPO in July 2025 with roughly 700 employees and a $2 billion valuation.
- BAE Systems opened a $150 million, 390,000-square-foot campus in northeast Austin in 2022 for 1,400+ employees.
The connective tissue is Capital Factory, Austin’s central tech hub, which co-locates the Army Applications Laboratory, the Defense Innovation Unit, AFWERX, and NAVALX alongside hundreds of startups. CEO Joshua Baer has tracked more than $500 million in government funding flowing to Texas startups with dual-use technology since these innovation units set up in Austin.
Biotech and Life Sciences
Austin’s life sciences sector hit 74% employment growth between 2019 and 2023. Roughly 300 companies employ 21,000+ people, with over 1,000 startups in the broader ecosystem. Total sector valuation reached approximately $42 billion in 2024.
Two companies show how quickly the scale changed. Colossal Biosciences, the CRISPR-based de-extinction company founded in Dallas in 2021, raised a $200 million Series C in January 2025 at a $10.2 billion valuation, making it Texas’s first “decacorn.” BillionToOne, a molecular diagnostics company, achieved unicorn status in June 2024 and will anchor a new six-building life sciences campus in northeast Austin, with its 220,000-square-foot “Forever Lab” expected by late 2026.
The biggest long-term play: UT Austin’s planned $2.5 billion medical center. It will feature two new hospital towers, including one operated by UT MD Anderson Cancer Center and staffed entirely by MD Anderson physicians. MD Anderson is the nation’s top-ranked cancer hospital. Right now, 25% of Austin patients leave the region for serious care. Construction is expected to begin in 2026 with opening targeted for 2030.
Austin moved from 23rd to 10th nationally in life sciences VC funding in 2022, raising roughly $900 million that year alone.
Semiconductors and the CHIPS Act Ecosystem
The semiconductor buildout might end up mattering more than any single corporate relocation. The Texas CHIPS Act allocated $1.4 billion for private chip manufacturing and university R&D, with nearly $400 million already committed to Central Texas projects through the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund.
Recipients include Samsung, Silicon Labs ($23.25 million grant), Arm ($4.16 million grant for Austin campus expansion, announced February 2026), and SpaceX. Combined with federal CHIPS Act funding, Central Texas has attracted over $10 billion in semiconductor-specific government incentives.
Data centers are part of this story too. Austin has 1.7 gigawatts of data center capacity as of early 2026, and that’s projected to double within two years. The San Antonio–Austin corridor represents the nation’s second-largest data center market, with a potential fourfold capacity increase within five years. Texas may surpass Virginia as the nation’s largest data center market by 2030. The Stargate initiative alone envisions 10 data centers already under construction in Texas with 10 more planned.
The Other Side: Layoffs, Departures, and What Austin Lost
Most articles about Austin’s corporate growth skip this part. They shouldn’t. The correction is what makes the current numbers mean something.
Austin lost nearly 4,000 tech jobs in the first half of 2024 alone. The actual figure? Likely higher, once you count unreported layoffs.
The most impactful reductions came from Austin’s largest employers:
- Dell Technologies shed roughly 25,000 jobs globally over 2023–2024. The company dropped from 133,000 to approximately 108,000 employees, a 19% reduction driven by declining PC sales and AI restructuring.
- Indeed cut approximately 4,500 total jobs across three rounds (2023–2025) despite opening a new 307,000-square-foot downtown headquarters in August 2023. CEO Chris Hyams resigned in mid-2025.
- Meta withdrew from nearly 1 million square feet of Austin office space, including abandoning its 586,000-square-foot lease at the Sixth and Guadalupe tower before ever moving in.
- Wayfair closed its Austin Technology Development Center entirely, cutting 340 tech jobs.
- Rooster Teeth and Arkane Studios Austin (Microsoft) both shut down completely.
| Company | Action | Impact | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dell | Global workforce reduction | ~25,000 jobs cut (19% of workforce) | 2023–2024 |
| Indeed | Three layoff rounds + CEO resignation | ~4,500 jobs cut | 2023–2025 |
| Tesla | Austin-specific layoffs | ~2,700 positions cut | 2024 |
| Meta | Office space withdrawal | ~1M sq ft abandoned in Austin | 2023–2024 |
| Wayfair | Austin tech center closure | 340 jobs eliminated | 2024 |
| Rooster Teeth | Complete shutdown | All Austin employees | 2024 |
| Arkane Studios Austin | Studio closure (Microsoft) | All Austin employees | 2024 |
| Oracle | HQ relocation announcement | HQ label moving to Nashville (Austin ops remain) | 2024 |
The office market tells the same story. Vacancy hit approximately 25% by early 2025. That’s among the highest of any major U.S. metro. The sublease glut peaked at 5.8 million square feet. The 66-story Sixth and Guadalupe tower, Austin’s tallest building, was delivered roughly 91% vacant. Net absorption was negative throughout early 2025.
Corporate relocation volume fell off a cliff: from 64 companies in 2022, to 37 in 2023, to just 11 through mid-2024. Austin lost its 12-year streak as America’s fastest-growing large metro.
Austin’s housing market experienced an 18–20% correction from its May 2022 peak of roughly $550,000 to approximately $435,000 by late 2025. And the expiration of Chapter 313 tax incentives in December 2022 removed a key corporate recruitment tool, though replacement legislation has partially filled the gap.
The losses are real.
But the big-dollar investments didn’t leave with the layoffs. Samsung’s $44 billion is still in the ground. Apple’s campus is still expanding. Tesla’s factory still employs 21,000 people. The correction pruned speculative excess. The foundation stayed.
How Austin Stacks Up Against Rival Sun Belt Cities
Austin isn’t the only Sun Belt metro chasing corporate relocations. Every major competitor is working the same pitch. And each has carved out a different niche.
According to CBRE data covering 2018–2024:
| Metro | HQ Relocations | Per Capita Rank | Key Differentiator | Signature Investment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dallas-Fort Worth | 100 | — | Financial services concentration, raw volume (24 Fortune 500 companies) | Goldman Sachs 980,000 sq ft campus for 5,000 employees |
| Austin | 81 | #1 by wide margin | Tech + semiconductors + defense convergence | Samsung $44B fab |
| Nashville | 35 | — | Healthcare-adjacent corporate growth | Oracle HQ + AllianceBernstein |
| Houston | 31 | — | Energy sector dominance | HPE headquarters |
| Phoenix | 31 | — | Semiconductor manufacturing (strongest nationally) | TSMC $65B fab investment |
| Raleigh-Durham | — | — | Biotech/life sciences research (#1 biomanufacturing market) | $8.9B invested since 2018 |
Miami has carved a distinct niche in finance and ultra-high-net-worth relocations. Citadel moved its headquarters there in 2022. Palantir relocated from Denver in February 2026.
Austin’s edge comes down to per-capita relocation volume, GDP growth rate, and venture capital concentration. No other single metro combines tech, semiconductors, defense, and life sciences at the same depth. The weakness: the AI investment wave has concentrated disproportionately in San Francisco, and Austin’s cost-of-living advantage over coastal hubs keeps shrinking.
Austin’s Economic Baseline: What the Numbers Say
Strip away the corporate announcements. Here’s what the baseline numbers look like.
Austin’s metro unemployment rate sat at 3.5% in mid-2025, well below both the Texas average (4.2%) and the national average (4.6%). The metro added 28,500 jobs in 2024 at a 2.1% growth rate, ranking as the fifth-fastest-growing large metro. Growth decelerated to approximately 1.4% through mid-2025, trailing the Texas average for the first time since the early 2000s dot-com bust.
The Austin-Round Rock MSA population reached roughly 2.5 million by 2025, having added approximately 267,000 residents since the 2020 Census. But growth is shifting to the suburbs. Hutto grew 9.4% (seventh-fastest in the U.S.). Georgetown surpassed 100,000 residents. The City of Austin proper? It added only 4,000 residents in 2023–2024. Domestic migration has fallen to 15-year lows, with international migration now the primary growth driver. For renters figuring out where to land, our guide to Austin’s best neighborhoods for young professionals breaks down commute, cost, and lifestyle by area.
| Metric | Austin Metro | Texas | National |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unemployment rate (mid-2025) | 3.5% | 4.2% | 4.6% |
| Jobs added (2024) | 28,500 | — | — |
| Job growth rate (2024) | 2.1% (5th-fastest large metro) | — | — |
| MSA population (2025) | ~2.5 million | — | — |
| GDP (2025) | $245B+ | — | — |
| Real GDP growth (2020–2025) | 39% | — | ~12% national avg |
| VC investment (2024) | $4.5B | — | — |
| Unicorn count | 18–20 (~$54.4B combined valuation) | — | — |
| Data center capacity | 1.7 GW (projected to double in 2 years) | — | — |
The metro’s GDP surpassed $245 billion in 2025. Real GDP growth hit 39% from 2020 to 2025, well above the national average. The American Growth Project ranked Austin the #1 top-performing metro in the U.S. in 2025.
Austin is home to 18–20 unicorns collectively valued at approximately $54.4 billion as of late 2024. VC investment stabilized at $4.5 billion in 2024 after peaking at roughly $5.5–6.5 billion in 2021–2022 and dropping to $3.8 billion in 2023. Notable unicorns include Apptronik (humanoid robotics), ICON Technology (3D-printed construction, ~$2 billion valuation), NinjaOne (IT management), and Tricentis (software testing, $1.5 billion raised).
The economy slowed. It didn’t break.
And the long-cycle commitments (a $44 billion semiconductor fab, a $2.5 billion medical center, a defense-tech unicorn, 1.7 gigawatts of data center capacity) don’t evaporate during a hiring correction.
Companies Moving to Austin: Frequently Asked Questions
How many companies have moved their headquarters to Austin?
Austin attracted 81 corporate headquarters relocations between 2018 and 2024, according to CBRE data. That makes it second only to Dallas-Fort Worth in raw volume and first in the nation per capita by a wide margin. The pace peaked in 2020–2022, with 154 companies announcing Austin moves in 2020 alone, before dropping to just 11 through mid-2024.
Is Tesla still headquartered in Austin?
Yes. Tesla moved its corporate headquarters from Palo Alto to Austin in December 2021. Gigafactory Texas sits on a 2,500-acre site near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and employs approximately 21,000 people after a 2024 layoff round that cut about 2,700 positions. Tesla remains Austin’s largest private employer, and total investment in the facility has exceeded $5 billion.
Did Oracle leave Austin?
Partially. Oracle moved its headquarters from Redwood City, California, to Austin in December 2020. In April 2024, the company announced it would move its world headquarters again, to Nashville, to align with its healthcare strategy. But Oracle maintains 3,000–4,200 employees in Austin, has filed permits for a new office building on its existing East Riverside campus, and is planning a 255-room adjacent hotel. The Nashville campus won’t open until approximately 2030.
What is Samsung building in Taylor, Texas?
Samsung is building a massive semiconductor fabrication complex in Taylor, about 40 miles northeast of Austin. The project started at $17 billion and has expanded to an estimated $44 billion, the largest foreign direct investment in Texas history. It spans 1,200 acres with over 4 million square feet of buildings. Samsung secured $6.4 billion in federal CHIPS Act funding. Production was originally targeted for 2024 but has been pushed to late 2026 or 2027 after pivoting to more advanced 2nm chip technology.
What defense companies are in Austin?
Austin has developed a significant defense-tech cluster anchored by the U.S. Army’s Transformation and Training Command (T2COM), headquartered downtown. Key defense companies include Saronic Technologies ($4 billion valuation, autonomous warships), Firefly Aerospace ($2 billion valuation, Moon lander), and BAE Systems ($150 million Austin campus). Capital Factory hosts co-located offices for the Army Applications Laboratory, Defense Innovation Unit, AFWERX, and NAVALX.
Is Austin still a good city for tech jobs?
Short answer: yes, but the market has tightened. Austin remains a top-five U.S. venture capital market with 18–20 unicorns and a 3.5% unemployment rate as of mid-2025. But big tech employment in Austin declined 1.6% in 2024, according to SignalFire analysis, as the generative AI boom concentrated jobs back in San Francisco. Dell, Indeed, and Meta all made significant cuts. The tech job market is healthy. It’s just no longer the one-way escalator it was in 2021.
What’s driving companies to move to Austin?
The original draws — no state income tax, lower cost of living than coastal cities, UT Austin’s talent pipeline — still apply, though the cost advantage has eroded. The newer drivers are industry-specific: CHIPS Act funding for semiconductor manufacturers, a military innovation command for defense contractors, a growing research hospital ecosystem for life sciences companies, and data center capacity along the San Antonio–Austin corridor. The “why Austin” answer depends heavily on which industry you’re asking about. If you’re relocating for a corporate job, our corporate relocation guide covers what to expect. If you’re new to renting, we’ve got you covered there too.
How does Austin compare to Dallas for corporate relocations?
Dallas-Fort Worth leads nationally with 100 headquarters relocations from 2018–2024, compared to Austin’s 81. DFW has 24 Fortune 500 companies and dominates in financial services; Goldman Sachs is building a 980,000-square-foot campus there. Austin leads per capita and has stronger concentration in tech, semiconductors, and defense. The two metros are complementary more than competitive: DFW attracts financial services and logistics headquarters; Austin attracts tech, semiconductor, and R&D operations.
Has Austin’s corporate growth slowed down?
Yes, meaningfully. Corporate relocation volume dropped from 64 companies in 2022 to 37 in 2023 to 11 through mid-2024. Office vacancy hit 25%. Job growth decelerated from 2.1% in 2024 to approximately 1.4% in mid-2025. But the underlying investments are massive and ongoing ($44 billion from Samsung, $1 billion-plus from Apple, a $2.5 billion UT medical center) and unemployment remains at 3.5%. The pace slowed. The structural commitments didn’t.
What are the biggest risks to Austin’s economy?
The AI investment wave has largely bypassed Austin for San Francisco, which is a real concern for long-term tech competitiveness. Office vacancy at 25% could pressure commercial real estate values for years. VC funding dropped roughly 40% from peak levels. The cost-of-living advantage that drove the original corporate exodus from California continues to narrow. And Samsung’s Taylor fab delays (from 2024 to potentially 2027) mean the semiconductor cluster’s full economic impact is still years away.
What Austin’s Corporate Story Actually Means
Austin’s economy from 2023 through early 2026 isn’t a decline story. The city grew too fast, corrected, and came out with a more diversified foundation than it started with.
The pandemic-era relocation boom (154 companies announced Austin moves in 2020 alone) was never going to last. The pullback in hiring, office absorption, and VC funding was overdue. Austin lost Oracle’s headquarters label. It absorbed painful layoffs from Tesla, Dell, Meta, and Indeed.
But the investments that stuck are enormous. Samsung’s $44 billion fab. Apple’s $1 billion-plus campus. Tesla’s $5 billion Gigafactory. Google’s finally-occupied 804,000-square-foot tower. A $2.5 billion UT MD Anderson medical center. A defense-tech ecosystem that produced a $4 billion unicorn in Saronic.
Austin is no longer just a destination for California corporate refugees. It’s an increasingly self-sustaining economy with real depth across semiconductors, defense, life sciences, and enterprise technology.
How many companies move here matters less than what they’re building and whether they’re planning to stay.
Relocating to Austin for work? Austin Apartment Locators helps corporate relocators find apartments matched to their commute, budget, and timeline. Our service is free to you. The apartment community pays our fee. Get started here or call 512-320-4599. Whether you’re moving for Apple, Tesla, Samsung, or a startup, we know which Austin neighborhoods and apartment communities match your workplace and budget. New to renting? Our guide for first-time renters has you covered.
