Thinking of Declining a Job Relocation? Our Tool Can Help
Here’s the quick answer: Employees are saying no to job relocations more than ever, and family ties are the top reason why. The 59th Annual Atlas Corporate Relocation Survey found that 46% of companies saw more employees turn down relocation offers in 2025 than the year before. This guide breaks down why employees are walking away and how to choose one of the best interstate moving companies if you decide to relocate.
Jump to the corporate relocation info you’re looking for:
Why moveBuddha: On average, moveBuddha users save more than 30% by comparing movers before booking. When you choose a moveBuddha Certified mover, you get $1,000 in added move coverage, plus dedicated support throughout your move. If something goes wrong, moveBuddha provides dispute mediation with Certified movers to help resolve the issue and protect your move.
The #1 reason employees decline relocation is family
The Atlas survey found the top three reasons employees turned down relocation in 2025 were:
- Family issues/ties: 34%
- Concerns about housing/mortgage at the new location: 28%
- Concerns about selling/leaving the home at origin: 21%
Moving isn’t just a logistics problem, it can be a life upheaval. It can mean uprooting a partner’s career, pulling kids from their schools, leaving aging parents, or giving up a support network built over years. The Atlas survey put it plainly: “The support systems employees have in their current communities are too valuable to give up.”
The hidden cost to companies
Here’s where it gets expensive. The same survey found that 52% of companies agreed they lost good employees due in part to a relocation policy.
Not because the package was stingy or because a relocation package negotiation fell through. Not because the job wasn’t good. Because the employee looked at everything a move would require and decided it wasn’t worth it.
An employee who declines a relocation and leaves the company represents a recruiting and retention failure. An employee who accepts but isn’t prepared represents a different kind of failure, one that tends to play out slower.
The decision is the hard part
Companies have gotten better at the logistics of moving. The Atlas survey shows widespread support for housing assistance, school searches, spousal job help, even mental health resources. But all of that help comes after the decision is made.
What about before?
Most employees are making one of the biggest decisions of their lives with no structured way to think it through. They’re weighing housing costs, family disruption, career opportunity, and personal wellbeing all at once, often under time pressure, without a clear framework.
That’s the problem we built our Should I Move For Work? tool to solve.
It walks people through the full picture of a relocation decision, including career factors, family considerations, finances, housing, and personal readiness. The tool delivers a confidence score at the end so they can see which areas they’ve thought through and which ones need more attention.
The goal isn’t to talk anyone into or out of moving. It’s to make sure that when someone says yes or no, they actually mean it.
FAQ
Why are employees turning down relocation offers?
Family ties are the top reason. In the Atlas Van Lines 59th Annual Corporate Relocation Survey, 34% of companies cited family issues or ties as the leading reason employees declined a relocation, followed by concerns about housing or a mortgage at the new location at 28% and difficulty selling or leaving the home at the current location at 21%.
How many companies saw employees decline relocation more often in 2025?
46% of companies said more employees turned down relocation offers in 2025 than the year before, according to the same Atlas survey of companies that actively relocate their employees.
What does it cost a company when an employee declines relocation?
It can cost the company the employee altogether. 52% of companies in the Atlas survey agreed they lost good employees due in part to a relocation policy, meaning the employee weighed everything the move would require and chose to leave the company instead.
What is moveBuddha’s Should I Move For Work tool?
It’s a free tool that walks you through the full picture of a relocation decision, covering career factors, family considerations, finances, housing, and personal readiness, then delivers a confidence score showing which areas you’ve thought through and which ones need more attention. Try it here.
Source
Atlas Corporate Relocation Survey, 59th Annual (2026)
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