Canadian travel to U.S. continues steep decline, data shows

Vehicles approach the United States border crossing as seen from Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., Thursday, April 10, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

Travel between Canada and the United States continues to steeply drop, new data from Statistics Canada (StatCan) shows.

In March this year, Canadian residents made 4.3 million trips returning from abroad, a 14.9 per cent decrease from the same month in 2024, in what the agency calls the third consecutive month of year-to-year declines.

Among the steepest drops were returning trips by car over the Canada-U.S. land border, down 31.4 per cent to 1.7 million trips in March. Meanwhile, air travel returning from the United States has shown a smaller, but more steady decrease of roughly eight per cent each month in the first quarter of this year, compared to the same time in 2024.

Overall, the 2.7 million return trips from the United States in March reflect a 24 per cent decline from the same time the year before, according to StatCan.

Returning trips from overseas have shown slowing growth leading into 2025, but accelerated in the most recent data to just over eight per cent higher than March of last year.

In a survey conducted earlier this month, opinion polling firm Leger found that a majority of Canadians “no longer feel welcome and/or safe travelling to the United States.”

A release from the Association for Canadian Studies, who commissioned the poll, attributes the trend to “the net result of all the tense exchanges” between the two countries, “notably coming from (U.S. President Donald) Trump.”

AirBnB bookings up

Trips to Canada among U.S. residents have also fallen since 2024, down 6.6 per cent from March of that year, in a decrease driven by drops in arrivals by car (8.7 per cent) and blunted by a small increase in incoming air travel (2.2 per cent).

The largest decreases in U.S. arrivals were seen in Ontario, down more than 60,000 from March 2024, followed by Quebec (18,874) and British Columbia (15,746).

According to AirBnB, Canadian bookings on the app for stays within the country have surged this year, up more than 40 per cent from 2019 to a “record-breaking nearly nine million domestic guest arrivals.”

The app’s list of popular international destinations for Canadians this summer include those in Europe, Asia, North Africa and Latin America, but notably don’t include any locations within the United States.

Statistics Canada notes that on a seasonally adjusted basis, which accounts for calendar effects like holidays and the number of weekends in a month, U.S. travel to Canada rose slightly, up 2.8 per cent between February and March.

Return trips for Canadian travellers declined even accounting for those quirks, however, down 7.1 per cent overall and down 11.7 per cent among automobile trips to the United States.