Contemporary internal migration trends in the US raise questions about the role of community characteristics in shaping individual‐level migration propensities among different racial and ethnic groups. To examine this issue more closely, this research incorporates key county‐level characteristics into a study of repeat migration. With data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth merged with US census data, this study found that heavily populated counties and counties with large concentrations of employment in manufacturing industries reduce the odds of primary outmigration, onward migration to other locations, and return migration to a previous county of residence. Counties with a high degree of natural amenity retain longstanding white residents. Net of individual unemployment, the county‐level unemployment rate hinders primary and onward migration among whites. In support of the cultural constraints hypothesis – a hypothesis that anticipates divergent community‐level effects for minority and majority group members – whites are more likely to engage in repeat migration from counties with smaller shares of non‐Hispanic white population whereas blacks are more likely to engage in repeat migration from areas with larger shares of non‐Hispanic white population. Whites and blacks are more likely to move out of counties with larger shares of foreign‐born population. The share of neither non‐Hispanic white population nor foreign‐born population affects Hispanic repeat migration propensities. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.