by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 2:20 PM ET, Tue July 28, 2026
Attracted by proximity, not to mention the more favorable climate, Canadians have a long history of visiting the United States in droves. In 2024, for instance, the Canadian-resident return border crossings from the U.S. accounted for three-quarters of all return trips.
According to Statistics Canada, the United States has long been Canada’s primary international travel destination. After Donald Trump was sworn in as president in 2025, however, that all changed.
Following the implementation of the new presidential administration’s policies that were economically damaging to Canada, not to mention Trump’s rhetoric, which consistently alienated our neighbors to the north, “Canadian travel sentiment shifted abruptly,” according to a new report published by the Canadian government.
By the end of 2025, return border crossings from the United States to Canada accounted for just two-thirds of all Canadian resident border crossings from abroad.
The same report reveals that Canadians spent $2.3 billion less on trips to the U.S. in 2025, and that's largely due to the decline in leisure travel, according to Statistics Canada.
Travel spending overall on visits to the U.S. declined to about $13 billion, down from $15.5 billion in 2024.
Travel to the U.S. has not recovered from the 2025 decline
The contraction of Canadian visitation to the United States began to show up in early 2025. Return border crossings by automobile dropped sharply almost immediately, while returns by air declined throughout the year, according to Statistics Canada.
The fact that it took longer for returns by air to experience any shift in numbers should not be misread as lingering support for visits to the United States, however. It was more likely a reflection of the fact that it’s “relatively easier to change automobile travel plans than air travel plans,” the Statistics Canada report explains.
By the time 2025 wrapped up, Canadian-resident return border crossings from the U.S. had dropped one-quarter (-25.4%) from 2024.
Moreover, the magnitude of the pullback in visitation grew more significant as the year progressed, bottoming out in July, with border crossing volumes nearly one-third below those reported 12 months earlier, says the report.
In late 2025, return crossings stabilized somewhat, returning to about one-quarter below 2024 levels. Still, the decline in Canadian visitation to the United States that took place in 2025 should not be underestimated.
“Excluding the COVID-19 pandemic period, the resulting 11-month streak of year-over-year declines was the deepest and most sustained on record for border crossings from the United States,” stresses the Statistics Canada report. Since 1972, when digital recordkeeping began for the Frontier Counts program, year-over-year declines of more than 30% have been recorded on only one other occasion. That was in September 2001, following the September 11, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.
In total, there were 7.1 million fewer trips to the U.S. in 2025. That figure was offset by Canadians taking 5 million more domestic trips and 1.3 million additional overseas trips, according to Statistics Canada.
Canadian travel outlook for 2026
There has yet to be any meaningful recovery in Canadian visitation to the United States as this year, according to the Statistics Canada analysis.
“In early 2026, total return border crossings from the United States remained at levels similar to those reported in late 2025, signaling a persistent shift away from the United States by Canadian residents in their travel preferences,” states the report.
Finally, the report notes that while family-related travel to the United States has declined at a much slower pace than leisure-related travel, Canadians are busy spending billions on leisure travel in other countries that do not include their immediate neighbor to the south.
“Leisure-related travel to destinations other than the United States was a driving force behind the $50 billion in tourism spending outside Canada in 2025,” concludes the report. “Early data for 2026 suggest that the steep decline in stateside border crossings is persisting.”
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