Americans feel the pain as Canadians cut travel

Significant revenue lost

Updated figures from Statistics Canada highlight a persistent decrease in cross-border travel to the United States, with October 2025 data suggesting the trend may reflect a broader, long-term change in Canadian travel habits.

A clear message to America and Trump

Canadians aren’t just rethinking their vacation plans; they’re sending a message. With every decline in traffic, they’re reinforcing a growing determination to keep their tourism dollars out of the United States. It’s a quiet but deliberate response to the current American political landscape and the leadership shaping the issues that anger Canadians.

The mistakes that Donald Trump made

US President Donald Trump probably didn’t understand what kind of terrible damage he would inflict on the United States when he began attacking Canada’s economic viability and the country’s sovereignty, with his tiresome tariff and 51st state threats.  

Canadians took Trump’s rhetoric to heart

Canadians took Trump’s rhetoric to heart and saw the President’s policies and words as a betrayal of the special relationship that the two countries have had for decades. Boycotts quickly followed, the chief among which was a growing desire to avoid vacationing in the US.

A worrying poll foresaw the trouble ahead

In April 2025, polling from Longwoods International found that six in ten Canadians said that they planned to avoid travel to the United States because of the political climate the US President had fostered with his tariff and his 51st state threats. 

The backlash should have been anticipated

The resulting backlash should have been accounted for by the US. Some organizations did try to warn the country that things could get bad if the amount of Canadians traveling to the United States fell by even a paltry ten percent of 2024's figures. 

What the US stood to lose from Canadians

According to a February 2025 press release from the US Travel Association, the United States was staring down the barrel of a possible $2.1 billion dollar loss in revenue and 14,000 job losses if 2 million fewer Canadians visited the US in 2025. 

America’s top source of international travelers

The US Travel Association noted that there were 20.4 million  Canadian visits to the United States in 2024, making Canada the largest source of foreign visits that year. All that travel generated $20.5 billion worth of spending. A large portion of that money was set to disappear in 2025 if Canadian travel dropped off, and it did. 

What Canada’s August travel data revealed

Preliminary data from Statistics Canada published in October revealed that August was the tenth consecutive month that travel to the United States declined in 2025, according to Forbes. While things weren’t as bad as previous months, they were still pretty nasty. 

Car trips were down by over one-third

Vehicle returns from the United States were down by 30.5% in October, with 1.4 million return trips. Statistics Canada’s report called this the "10th consecutive month of year-over-year declines" when it came to automobile return trips. 

Air travel was down by roughly one quarter

Air travel returns from the United States were also down significantly year-over-year in October. Just 437,300 air travel returns were recorded, which was a decline of 23.9%. This number may have been buoyed by the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday period, which saw the largest number of air travel returns.

The numbers recorded for the Thanksgiving holiday

"In October, the highest number of returning Canadian-resident arrivals per day was observed on Thanksgiving, Monday, October 13 (59,400), and the lowest was seen on Thursday, October 2 (32,800)," Statistics Canada reported about air travel returns from the US.

Automobile returns on Thanksgiving were also high

The Thanksgiving holiday also saw the largest number of automobile returns. "The highest number of returning Canadian-resident arrivals was observed on Thanksgiving, Monday, October 13 (106,100). This number was 148.4% higher than the average for the other Mondays in October," Statistics Canada explained.

The top destinations for Canadians in 2024

According to the US Travel Association's February 2025 press release, Florida, California, Nevada, New York, and Texas were the five top destinations for Canadians in 2024. How each of these states has been affected by the travel boycott going on in Canada has yet to be fully seen. 

International travel to the US is way down

According to Axios, recent US Customs and Border Protection data shows that international air travel to the United States is down by 7% year-over-year in 2025. America might see a total drop of 8.2%, according to a forecast from Travel Economics, and that would be bad. 

US losses from travel dollars will hurt

Forbes reported in July that Travel Economics previously found that the US was set to see a 9% increase in tourism in 2025. That figure translates into roughly $16.3 billion in revenue for the country. However, if the 8.2% proves accurate, the United States will lose big. 

America could lose tens of billions

According to Forbes, if Travel Economics’ previously estimated travel growth is added to the estimated decline the US is set to see by the end of the year, then the United States is likely to see a potential revenue loss of around $25 billion.