Canadian Travel to the US Is Nonetheless Low, New Data Exhibits

Canadians aren’t visiting the US as a lot as they used to.

Data from Statistics Canada as much as November confirmed that fewer Canadians returned from the US — indicating fewer visited the US — than up to now couple of years.

Julian Karaguesian, a visiting lecturer within the economics division at McGill University in Montreal and former particular advisor within the International Trade and Finance Branch within the Department of Finance Canada, informed Business Insider that a number of elements are contributing to diminished Canadian journey to the US, together with an immigration crackdown and President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on each commerce and turning the nation into the 51st US state.

“We started to see from summer onwards, a lot of protests, a lot of activity by ICE, rhetoric and talk about calling in the National Guard to clean up cities,” Karaguesian mentioned. “I think that scared away a lot of tourists.”

The variety of Canadians coming back from the US plunged in the course of the pandemic, and by no means really recovered to its pre-pandemic common. After some restoration, it took an enormous slip in early 2025 and is down a few quarter from a yr in the past in November. Statistics Canada information additionally confirmed that US residents getting into Canada have not had as massive a drop from the beginning of the yr as Canadian residents returning did.

Meanwhile, Canadians are doubling down on what Canada has to supply. Statistics Canada mentioned home journey within the second quarter of 2025 was 10.9% larger than a yr in the past. Over a 3rd of the home journey was characterised as vacation, leisure, and recreation journeys.

Karaguesian expects Canadian journey to the US to proceed to chill because of the “Buy Canadian” motion, political instability, the commerce warfare, and up to date violence within the US.

Prioritizing Canadian items was one of many methods Justin Trudeau, now the previous prime minister, inspired residents after the commerce warfare between the US and Canada started. Discouraging US journey was one other.

“We’re going to choose to not go on vacation in Florida or Old Orchard Beach or wherever,” Trudeau mentioned. “We’re going to choose to try to buy Canadian products and forgo bourbon and other classic American products.”

The decline in Canadian vacationers can have an effect on US companies that depend on them to prosper.

A report from the Democratic members of the Congress Joint Economic Committee included completely different enterprise house owners describing how the autumn in Canadian tourism to the US has affected them.

“We spoke with Canadian customers who told us point-blank that they were hesitant to cross due to the current political tension,” Kyle Daley, proprietor of grocery store Soloman’s Store in New Hampshire, mentioned within the report. “The joy of the ‘shopping day trip’ has been replaced by anxiety over border enforcement and tariffs.”

Daley added that “When our neighbors stay away, our margins disappear and in groceries those margins are vanishingly small to begin with.”

U.S. Travel Association mentioned Canada is the primary driver for the anticipated 3.2% drop in worldwide inbound journey spending from 2024 to 2025.

Karaguesian mentioned the consequences can be felt extra by native economies. That can embody Michigan, Vermont, and different areas alongside the border.

“The longer-term ramifications are that our economy will suffer and that businesses will close and people will lose their jobs, which is just terrible,” Becca Brown McKnight, a metropolis councilor in Burlington, Vermont, beforehand informed Business Insider. “We are really lucky in Vermont to have a robust small business economy; a lot of these are mom and pop shops, and this is people’s entire livelihood.”

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer mentioned that the state and Canada’s “economies are intertwined” in response to a query at a fireplace chat about why Canada ought to belief the state “in the midst of a chaotic tariff policy.”

Sandy Levine, the proprietor of some eating places within the Detroit space, mentioned in a WDET article printed in June that “We certainly still see people from Canada and from other countries, but it’s not nearly to the degree that it was maybe like six months ago or a year ago.”

Karaguesian thinks that if the White House had merely targeted on arguing for tariffs to rebuild the US manufacturing sector with out harming Canada, then the administration “could achieve the same thing and not have put off so many Canadians through a mixture of pride and fear.”