Canadian return trips to the United States fell 31.5% in February 2026 compared with February 2024, as trade tensions continue to reshape cross-border travel patterns, Statistics Canada said on March 10.
On a year-over-year basis, return car trips from the US by Canadians fell 12.9% in February, while air travel dropped 17.6%, the data agency said.
“In February last year, we were right in the middle of the bad feelings, and people were still changing their vacation plans and their travel plans at that point,” Douglas Porter, chief economist at BMO Economics, told National Post on March 10, noting that the two-year comparison provided a fuller picture of shifting Canadian attitudes.
Porter said travel levels had rebounded from the “extreme lows that they hit around the middle part of last year, but are still way, way down from pre-tariff war levels.”
The decline follows US President Donald Trump’s tariff offensive against Canada, launched on February 1 2025, which imposed a 25% levy on Canadian goods excluding energy, which faced a 10% tariff. Trump’s accompanying verbal attacks on Canada, including repeated calls for it to become the 51st state, deepened anti-American sentiment among Canadians.
Evidence suggests Canadians are redirecting travel abroad rather than staying home. Overseas trips by Canadian residents by air rose 7.2% in February compared with a year earlier, and for the second consecutive month the number of overseas air trips exceeded US car trips, at 1.3mn versus one million.
“What really stands out is that it’s not as if Canadians aren’t travelling,” Porter said. “When you look at the number of trips abroad, they’re still quite, quite strong.”
Several airlines have responded by cutting US-bound routes for the summer season with Canadians now looking elsewhere to travel in the period.
Latest actual arrivals in US
- NTTO data show that in June 2025 the US received about 5.28 million international visitors, down 6.2% from June 2024 and at roughly 83% of June 2019 levels.
- October 2025 total international arrivals were around 5.85 million, still below pre‑pandemic volumes, with continued year‑on‑year declines in September–November 2025.
- In Q1 2025, about 10.4 million international visitors arrived by air alone, including 2.6 million from Canada, 652,000 from Mexico, and 7.1 million from other overseas markets.
Yearly volumes and trend
- International visitation to the US in 2024 was about 72.4 million, up 9.1% on 2023 but still short of the 79.4 million pre‑pandemic total in 2019.
- NTTO forecasts 77.1 million visitors in 2025 (up 6.5% vs 2024) and 85 million in 2026, which would finally exceed 2019 levels.
- U.S. Travel Association’s autumn 2025 update is more cautious, projecting inbound visits to fall to around 85% of 2019 levels in 2025 before returning to growth in 2026
By source market
- For July 2025, the top total‑arrivals markets were Mexico (~1.59m), Canada (~1.36m), the UK (~380k), India (~187k), and France (~176k), together providing about 59% of all international arrivals.
- Among overseas tourists specifically (excluding Canada/Mexico), the UK, France, Brazil, Germany, and Japan were the largest July 2025 leisure markets.
- Forecasts highlight strong growth prospects from India, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, and (depending on trade politics) Canada, which has recently been a weak spot.
2026–2027 outlook
- NTTO’s June 2024 forecast expects total international arrivals to rise 10.2% in 2026 to about 85 million, then another 6% in 2027 to 90.1 million.
- Big events such as the 2026 FIFA World Cup and America 250 in 2026 are built into forecasts as key demand drivers for inbound tourism.
- Headwinds include weaker Canadian demand, visa processing backlogs, higher costs, and perceptions of US entry difficulty, which are all cited as restraining full‑throttle recovery.