Evictions Fell Slightly in 2025, Report Finds, But Some Areas Saw Upticks, Including Virginia

Eviction filings fell in 2025 for the second straight year in the cities and states tracked in a new report — areas home to roughly a third of the country’s renters — though some of those places saw increases.

Landlords filed more than 1.23 million eviction cases in the 10 states and 38 cities where data was collected by Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, a research center. That’s slightly lower than the 1.25 million in 2024.

Across those locations, the average eviction filing rate was 7.9%, which means that landlords filed roughly one eviction case for every 13 renter households in 2025.

The areas of Atlanta (25%), Richmond, Virginia (24%), Charleston, South Carolina (17%), and Indianapolis (14%) had filing rates that were at least double the national average, the report said. In Atlanta, landlords filed 144,000 eviction cases, a 4% drop from previous years.

Eviction filings were up at 13 of the 48 sites compared with the typical number of eviction cases filed annually in 2023 and 2024, with the largest increase of 30% in the greater Austin, Texas, area. Miami recorded far fewer cases, with the largest drop in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where landlords filed 20% fewer cases than average.

New York City had a comparatively low eviction filing rate, at 5%. Researchers credit strong tenant protections, such as universal access to lawyers for eviction cases in court, despite high rents and a competitive real estate market.

The report also found that Black renters are significantly overrepresented in eviction filing cases. Despite making up 28% of the renter population, 39% of eviction filings tracked by Eviction Lab named a Black defendant. In contrast, 37% of eviction filings were against white defendants, lower than their 45% of the renter population.

Like previous years, the report also found that eviction cases are concentrated among a small number of landlords.

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

by Robbie Sequeira, Virginia Mercury

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