In 2025, Canadians spent $3.3 billion less on travel to the US compared to the previous year, reflecting a significant change in travel behavior. This decline coincides with the return of Donald Trump to office and his administration’s America First policies.
Statistics Canada reports that while spending on US travel fell, Canadians increased their travel to other international destinations such as Europe and Asia. The drop in US visits was the most sustained on record, highlighting a notable shift in travel preferences.
Canadians spent $3.3bn less on travel to the US in 2025 than in the previous year, as Donald Trump’s hostile policies towards his northern neighbour continue to incur an economic cost, new government data shows.
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The research also indicates that Canadians are not bucking travel overall and instead have replaced US vacations with other international destinations, in a rebuke to Trump’s tariff regime and the president’s continued musings on annexing Canada.
“Following the change in the US administration in early 2025 and the implementation of America First policies, Canadian travel sentiment shifted abruptly,” said authors of the report published by Statistics Canada, the country’s national statistics agency.
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Total US travel spending in 2025 amounted to $18.8bn, down from $22.1bn in 2024.
In contrast, Canadian spending on travel abroad, excluding the US, grew by $3.6bn in 2025, to a total of $22.8bn.
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Canadian visits to Europe increased by nearly 14% compared to 2024, while visits to Asia increased by almost 17%.
Those increases offered a stark contrast to the dwindling US visits. Overall in 2025, return trips to Canada from the US by vehicle and by plane dropped by about one quarter compared to 2024. The highest travel declines were recorded in July 2025, when border crossings fell by about one-third from the previous year.
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Those plummeting border crossings through nearly the entire year were “the deepest and most sustained on record”, the agency said. Since digital record-keeping began in 1972, declines of more than 30% have only ever been seen in September 2001, after the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks.
Looking at 2026 data so far, Statistics Canada said the drop in leisure travel to the US is continuing. Return trips to Canada from the US this year are at similar levels seen at the end of 2025, which saw a 27% decline between October and December, it reported.
The data signals “a persistent shift away from the United States by Canadian residents in their travel preferences”.
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