Why Record Numbers of Americans Are Skipping Trips to Canada

The claim travels easily, especially in headlines about a strained border. Checking it against Statistics Canada’s border counts for 2024 through 2026 turns up a more complicated story.

American travel to Canada did slip in 2025, and some travelers are staying home for real reasons. The year’s biggest travel drop was on the opposite side of the border, though. The sections below sort out which numbers say what.

What the Annual Totals Show

US resident arrivals to Canada totaled 22.8 million in 2025, a decline of less than three percent from the year before.[1] That compares with 23.5 million in 2024.[2]

It was the first annual decline since 2016, if you set the pandemic years aside.[1] A dip, in other words, and not a record low. The 2025 total still stood at roughly nine tenths of the 2019 level.[1]

A Soft 2025 With a Rough Finish

The US government’s own tally points the same way. The National Travel and Tourism Office reported that American departures to Canada fell by just under five percent in 2025, the first decline since 2020.[3] A Destination Canada executive said the early months were weaker and that momentum picked up as the year went on.

December was a harder month. US resident trips to Canada came to 1.6 million, down 7.5 percent from December 2024.[1] Statistics Canada noted that British Columbia’s drop was partly a base year effect, since December 2024 had a run of high profile concerts in Vancouver.[1]

The 2026 Rebound

This year began quietly. US resident trips to Canada edged down slightly in January 2026, to 1.1 million.[4] February then brought 1.1 million trips, up 5.9 percent from the same month in 2025.[5]

The gains continued through the spring and summer. April counted 1.5 million American trips, up 6.9 percent.[6] In September, Americans made 1.8 million trips by car and plane, a 17.2 percent rise and the eighth straight monthly increase.[7] Statistics Canada said the sharp jump partly reflected Labour Day weekend falling a week later than it did in 2025.[7]

Why Some Americans Hesitated

Statistics Canada tied the 2025 setback in part to the political tensions between the two countries. TD Economics, writing in mid 2025, linked falling visits to trade tensions and economic uncertainty, and expected cross border spending to shrink.[8] Those were forecasts and explanations from analysts, not a survey of individual travelers.

Polling on this topic mostly asks Canadians why they avoid the United States, not Americans why they skip Canada. That leaves the American motives harder to pin down. Destination Canada has said its brand health remains strong among American travelers.[3]

Where the Drop Was Sharpest: Car Trips

Land travel took the harder hit. In February 2025, American arrivals by air fell seven percent while arrivals by car fell nearly thirteen percent.[9] Destination Canada later said overnight air arrivals for the year were down only slightly, while overnight land arrivals were down about one tenth.[3]

Many of those car crossings are short ones. In December 2025, just over half of American car arrivals were same day trips.[1] That makes border traffic sensitive to small changes in mood, cost and convenience.

The Border Entry Factor

One explainer published this month points to a narrower group of Americans who stay home for a different reason. Canadian immigration law lets officers refuse entry to foreign nationals with certain arrests or convictions, including ones from the United States.[10] That is a longstanding rule and not a new policy.

The same piece is careful about scale. It says the trend is not a story of Americans being kept away in droves, but of a smaller group who find the door closed.[10] It is a factor for some travelers, not a driver of national totals.

The Real Record Belongs to Canadian Travelers

The truly dramatic numbers run the other way. Canadian return trips from the US dropped about a quarter in 2025, while US travel to Canada declined less than three percent.[2] About 29 million Canadians visited the US in 2025, down sharply from 39 million in 2024.[2]

The slump has lasted. February 2026 marked the fourteenth straight month of year over year decline in Canadian trips from the US.[5] One analysis describes it as the deepest and longest run of declines since modern border records began in 1972, excluding the pandemic.[11] That is likely where the idea of a record boycott comes from, even if the direction gets reversed in some headlines.

Overseas Visitors Filled Part of the Gap

Canada’s tourism sector had a cushion in 2025. Roughly 671,000 fewer American visitors arrived than in 2024, largely offset by about 477,000 more overseas travelers.[2] Europe and Asia supplied most of the overseas growth.[2]

The pattern carried into 2026. In February, 338,100 overseas residents arrived in Canada, up 7.5 percent from a year earlier.[5] Canadians are also traveling differently, with more flying overseas than driving to the US for three months in a row in early 2026.[12]

What It Means for Local Economies

Money flows show the imbalance. Statistics Canada estimated that Canadians spent about 18.8 billion dollars on US travel in 2025, down 3.3 billion from the previous year.[11] Canadian tourism had accounted for 20.5 billion dollars in US revenue in 2024.[13]

Canada’s exposure to American visitors is also real, if smaller in scale. Even a modest decline can strain communities that rely heavily on American tourists, particularly in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.[2] Desjardins noted that softer US demand has not offset support from domestic tourism and rising overseas arrivals.[2]

Where the Latest Figures Leave Things

The most recent Statistics Canada release covers September 2026. US residents made 1.3 million trips to Canada by automobile and 537,400 by air.[14] Those figures sit alongside a partial recovery in the other direction. Canadian return trips from the US totaled 1.9 million, up 6.8 percent from September 2025.[14]

Canadian car trips from the US remained 31.1 percent below September 2024.[14] Destination Canada expects revenue from US visitors to grow through 2030, with Americans remaining Canada’s largest source of arrivals.[3]