Canadian land journey to the U.S. fell greater than 30% in 2025

Statistics Canada says border knowledge for 2025 has been compiled, and the numbers present a stark change in Canadian journey behaviour with the United States.

Compared to 2024, the variety of Canadian vehicles that went to the U.S. and again final yr fell by 30.9 per cent.

While the decline in land journey to the U.S. from Canada occurred amid historic commerce tensions and a Buy Canadian motion, an analyst with Statistics Canada would not speculate on the explanations for the drop — as steep as it might be.

“I will say that the decline that we’re seeing in 2025 is notable because of its length and the depth of the decline,” Laura Presley of Statistics Canada.

“It hasn’t been too often in our history where we’ve seen drops of that level, for as long of a period.”

According to Presley, the Canada Border Services Agency processed 17 million Canadian autos on the U.S. border final yr.

In 2024, that quantity was 24.6 million.

It’s a lower of roughly 7.6 million vehicles.

“We also saw a decrease of American residents entering Canada, and that’s a bit less extreme,” Presley added. “American residents entering Canada decreased by 6.3 per cent from 2024.”

Presley is not sure how the 30.9 per cent decline compares traditionally with earlier fluctuations in cross-border site visitors numbers — such because the interval after the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults on the U.S., and in the course of the 2008 monetary disaster.

But she says cross-border site visitors numbers had been “pretty consistent” earlier than the swing in 2025.

Presley additionally notes that whereas land crossings between Windsor, Ont., and Detroit have seen decreases in Canadian automobile site visitors in 2025 — it hasn’t been as dramatic because the nationwide knowledge.

In 2025, these crossings noticed roughly 3.4 million Canadian autos enter Canada.

In 2024, that determine was 3.8 million.

The distinction of roughly 400,000 autos represents a lower of about 11 per cent.

Tal Czudner, CEO of a type of land crossings — the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel — says the tunnel’s personal numbers present even much less change.

“I consider our story a success story. We’re only down around 4.5 per cent, on a year to year basis, if we’re comparing 2024 to 2025 — which is less than anybody else,” stated Czudner, who runs the Canadian facet of the tunnel.

Czudner feels there’s quite a lot of explanation why the nationwide pattern hasn’t been mirrored regionally.

A significant one is cross-border employment.

“We’ve got somewhere around 11,000 people in health care, IT, engineering and automotive who live in Windsor-Essex and travel to Detroit every single day,” Czudner stated. “Henry Ford Hospital is one of the largest employers in Essex County.”

Another issue is the comfort of proximity, and the affordability of visiting the U.S. from Windsor.

“We’ve kept our value pretty affordable,” Czudner stated about tunnel tolls.

Finally, as a lot as there was political campaigning on protecting Canadian {dollars} in Canada, Czudner says Detroit sports activities staff fandom is a robust draw for Windsor-Essex people.

“Sometimes sports has a stronger foothold than politics in a household.”