• Continued decline in Canadian visitors to the United States
• Increase in Canadian air travel to overseas destinations
• Significant drops in both air and automobile travel from Canada to the U.S.
• Travel industry observations suggest a shift to Mexico, the Caribbean, and Europe

Canadian travel patterns are undergoing a noticeable shift, with a consistent decline in visits to the United States. Data from Statistics Canada for September 2025 indicates that Canadian-resident trips to overseas countries by air increased by 3.9 percent year-over-year, reaching 1 million. Conversely, the number of Canadian-resident return trips by air from the United States experienced a significant decline of 27.1 percent during the same period, totaling 372,000 visitors.

The trend in automobile travel mirrors this pattern, with Canadian-resident return trips from the United States by car decreasing by 34.8 percent year-over-year between September 2024 and September 2025. This marks the ninth consecutive month of year-over-year declines, with the September figures representing a more pronounced downward trend compared to August.

Looking at August 2025, Canadian-resident return trips by air from abroad were 1.6 million. While trips from overseas countries increased by 6.6 percent to 1.2 million, return trips by air from the United States declined by 25.4 percent to 423,100. For automobile travel in August, Canadian-resident return trips from the United States totaled 1.9 million, a 33.9 percent drop from August 2024.

The onset of this decline in Canadian travel to the U.S. has been noted following the return to office of Donald Trump and the subsequent announcement of new tariff policies for Canada. Specifically, tariffs were raised to 35 percent in August for items not covered by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Reports from various travel companies suggest that Canadians are increasingly choosing destinations such as Mexico, the Caribbean, and Europe over the United States.