8 numbers behind Dallas-Fort Worth economic momentum
Key points:
- • Dallas-Fort Worth added 123,557 residents from 2024 to 2025 and 54,000 jobs in the year ending July 2026.
- • DFW accounted for 410 of Texas’ 1,406 qualifying corporate investment projects in 2025, helping the state secure its 14th consecutive Governor’s Cup.
- • Population, corporate investment and financial-sector employment remain strong. Rising unemployment, slower wage growth, lower airport traffic and elevated commercial vacancy also point to a market that is normalizing.
September 2026 — Dallas-Fort Worth keeps adding scale. The metro added 123,557 residents from July 2024 to July 2025. That was the second-largest numeric increase among U.S. metros, behind Houston. Population is only one measure of Dallas-Fort Worth economic momentum. Employment, corporate investment, and financial-sector hiring also continue to expand, even as other indicators show where growth is starting to moderate.
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123,557 new residents
DFW’s population reached 8,477,157 in 2025, up 123,557 from the year before, according to U.S. Census Bureau population estimates. The metro’s five-year migration numbers tell a broader story. DFW gained about 270,000 residents through net domestic migration from 2020 to 2025 — nearly 40% more than any other U.S. metro, according to the Census Bureau.
54,000 new jobs
Nonfarm payroll employment in Dallas-Fort Worth rose by 54,000 jobs in the year ending July 2026, according to BLS metropolitan employment data. Only the New York metro added more jobs during the period.
The gain came with a caveat. DFW’s unemployment rate climbed to 4.6% in July, up from 4.1% in February, according to BLS regional data. Payrolls continue to expand. The unemployment rate shows the broader labor market has softened alongside that growth.
410 corporate projects
Texas secured its 14th consecutive Governor’s Cup in 2025 with 1,406 qualifying corporate investment projects. That was more than double second-place Illinois. DFW accounted for 410 of those projects, or about 29% of the statewide total, according to the Dallas Regional Chamber.
The chamber separately tracked 87 notable corporate locations and expansions across DFW in 2025. Thirty were headquarters announcements. Together, the figures show corporate investment extending across a region with multiple employment centers rather than concentrating in a single central business district.
386,000 financial services jobs
Dallas-Fort Worth’s financial services sector employed 386,000 people in 2025, according to the Dallas Regional Chamber. The chamber reports that sector employment has increased from 212,000 in 2000. The region now ranks second nationally for financial services employment, behind New York, according to the chamber.
Recent investments include Scotiabank’s planned regional hub, Goldman Sachs’ new Dallas campus, and Wells Fargo’s expanded Irving presence.
$37.28 average hourly wage
Average hourly earnings in DFW reached $37.28 in February 2026, up 2.6% from a year earlier, according to the Dallas Fed’s regional dashboard. That exceeded the statewide average of $35. National hourly earnings grew faster, rising 3.5% from a year earlier as of March. DFW maintains a wage premium over Texas even as its wage growth trails the national pace.
24 Fortune 500 companies
DFW is home to 24 companies on the 2026 Fortune 500, up from 22 a year earlier, according to the Dallas Regional Chamber. The region also has 49 companies on the broader Fortune 1000 list. Those businesses span 32 industry sectors, according to the chamber.
DFW’s Fortune 500 companies generate nearly $1.1 trillion in combined annual revenue and employ more than 1.3 million people worldwide. The mix gives the region exposure to industries ranging from telecommunications and aviation to health care, finance, technology, and construction.
12.2M square feet absorbed
DFW industrial net absorption reached 12.2 million square feet in the first quarter of 2026. It was the market’s strongest quarter since the third quarter of 2022. Industrial vacancy declined to 10%, according to data cited by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
The composition of demand is also changing. Manufacturing users accounted for 30% of DFW leases of at least 100,000 square feet during the first half of the year, according to CBRE. The figures suggest industrial demand is broadening beyond the distribution tenants that have historically driven much of North Texas’ warehouse market.
85.7 million passengers
Dallas Fort Worth International Airport handled 85.66 million passengers in 2025, ranking fourth busiest in the world, according to Airports Council International. Traffic fell 2.5% from 2024’s total of 87.8 million. The airport’s reach remains a significant piece of DFW’s business infrastructure. It connects the region with 193 domestic and 78 international nonstop destinations according to DFW Airport.
Growth meets normalization
The eight figures show a region still adding residents, jobs, and corporate investment at a scale few U.S. markets match. They also show a more complicated economy than the headline numbers suggest. Unemployment has risen. Wage growth trails the national rate. Airport traffic declined. Office vacancy remains near 22%, according to the Dallas Fed’s regional dashboard, citing CBRE Econometric Advisors data. Industrial vacancy has also improved, though it remains above the unusually tight conditions recorded earlier this decade.
Those trends do not erase Dallas-Fort Worth economic momentum. They reframe it. DFW continues to produce unusually large absolute gains even as several underlying indicators normalize toward a steadier pace. For executives evaluating the region, these figures point less to a market that is still accelerating and more to one testing whether it can sustain its scale after years of outsized growth.
Want more? Read the Invest: Dallas – Fort Worth report.
