Canadian residents returned from 25% fewer trips to the United States in December 2025 compared with the same month a year earlier, Statistics Canada reported on February 23, marking the first annual decline in international arrivals since 2016, excluding the pandemic years.
Canadian-resident return trips from the US dropped to 2.2mn in December, with automobile crossings falling 30.2% to 1.5mn, of which 68.4% were same-day trips. Air returns from the US declined 11.0% to 718,400.
Statistics Canada said the year-over-year decrease in overall international arrivals “occurred alongside continued political tensions between Canada and the United States,” reported on February 23.
The figures contributed to a 15% year-on-year fall in total Canadian trips abroad in December, with residents returning from 3.5mn trips overall. For the full year 2025, Canadian-resident trips to the US totalled 29.1mn, down 25.4%, representing just two-thirds (66.4%) of pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
Traffic flowing the other way also contracted, with US residents making 1.6mn trips to Canada in December, down 7.5% year on year. Arrivals by automobile fell 7.5% to 1.1mn, while air arrivals decreased 4.6% to 395,800. British Columbia recorded the steepest provincial decline, in part due to what Statistics Canada described as “a base-year effect from a higher number of visitors in December 2024 that coincided with a series of high-profile concerts in Vancouver,” reported on February 23.
Overseas travel told a different story. Some 509,500 overseas residents arrived in Canada in December, up 14.1% year on year, with 90.7% travelling by air. Growth was led by arrivals from the Americas excluding the US (+19.7%), Asia (+15.9%) and Europe (+8.7%). The United Kingdom supplied the largest share of overseas visitors at 59,600, followed by France at 52,700 and Mexico at 47,200, together accounting for 31.3% of all overseas arrivals.
In 2025, the number of international cruise ship passengers in Canada (1.9 million) was down 1.5% year over
year. Disembarkations in Canada by US residents edged up (+0.9%) from 2024 and were largely offset by the
decline in disembarkations by Canadian residents (-17.2%) and overseas residents (-4.9%). International
cruise ship passengers in Canada surpassed the 2019 pre-pandemic level (+31.4% in 2025) for the third
consecutive year.
For the full year 2025, total international arrivals to Canada reached 72.9mn, down 10.9% from 2024, equivalent to just 82.3% of 2019 levels. Overseas-resident arrivals for the full year reached 6.8mn, up 7.5%, surpassing pre-pandemic levels for the second consecutive year.