Topline

The number of Canadian visitors to the U.S. nudged upward in June compared to a year ago—but visitation remains significantly down compared to 2024.

While more Canadians are traveling to the U.S. compared to 2025—that’s only because 2025 was a disastrous year.

gettyKey Facts

June was the third consecutive month when more Canadians (+3%) traveled to the U.S. compared to the previous year, according to data released Monday from Statistics Canada.

This was driven by a 5% increase in car trips, while trips by air were down 4% year over year.

Overall visitation from Canadians remains down roughly 29% compared to June 2024, driven by fewer trips by car (-30%) and by air (-25%).

American travel to Canada increased 5% in June, marking the fifth consecutive month of year-over-year increases.

Canadian Visitor Volume Remains Bleak

The increase in Canadian visitors to the U.S. in June was “due to a base-year effect,” Statistics Canada noted, referring to a statistical distortion occurring because 2025 visitation was extraordinarily low. Inbound travel into the U.S. began tumbling in spring of 2025, when President Donald Trump began calling Canada “the 51st state.” The then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Canadians not to vacation south of the border, which kicked off a travel boycott that has continued. As recently as April, roughly six in 10 Canadians (57%) said U.S. government policies, trade practices and political statements have made them less likely to travel to the U.S. in the next 12 months, according to a Longwoods International tracking survey.

How Much Has Canada’s Travel Boycott Hurt The U.S. Economy?

Historically, Canadians have comprised the single largest cohort of inbound tourists to the U.S., making up about a quarter of all foreign visitors, according to the U.S. National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO). In 2024, Canadian visitors spent $20.5 billion in the United States, according to the U.S. Travel Association (USTA). In early 2025, the organization warned that even a 10% reduction in Canadian inbound travel could translate to $2.1 billion in lost spending and 140,000 lost jobs in the hospitality sector. The actual drop was 22%, translating to an estimated loss to the U.S. economy of around $4.5 billion.

Tangent

Since late February, the combination of falling demand and rising jet fuel prices due to the conflict in Iran led the largest Canadian airlines to remove roughly 10% of transborder flights from their spring and summer schedules, with the biggest cuts coming from Air Canada, WestJet and Air Transat. Trimming scheduled flights is not a decision airlines make lightly, Mike Arnot, an airline industry consultant at Cirium, told Forbes. “Cutting flights can mean losing access to slots” at busy airports, which are authorized time windows granted to specific airlines to land or take off. Slots are valuable assets, sometimes bought, sold or swapped between airlines.

Further Reading

Rising Fuel Costs And Falling Demand Spur Canada’s Airlines To Cut US Routes (Forbes)