Canadian Travel to the U.S. Edges Higher Despite Months of Boycott

After a year and a half of Canadians turning their backs on American road trips, beach vacations, and shopping weekends, the numbers finally show a flicker of change. New figures from Statistics Canada reveal that Canadian travel to the United States rose again in June, marking the third straight month of year-over-year gains. It is a modest shift, and nowhere near a full recovery, but it is enough to catch the attention of tourism officials on both sides of the border who have spent more than a year watching the numbers slide.

The uptick comes even as the broader boycott movement, born out of anger over tariffs and talk of Canada becoming the “51st state,” remains very much alive in the minds of many Canadian travelers. Whether this recent bump signals the beginning of the end or just a brief pause in a much longer story is still an open question.

June Numbers Show a Small But Real Uptick

According to Statistics Canada, Canadian resident return trips from the United States rose 3.2 percent in June compared with a year earlier, reaching about 1.7 million trips. Preliminary figures show Canadians’ tally of return trips from the United States rose 3.2 per cent to 1.7 million in June from a year earlier, the third consecutive month of year-over-year increases. The gain was driven almost entirely by car travel, since the agency says the rise was driven by a 5.2 per cent boost in the number of car visits, while return trips by plane fell 3.8 per cent.

Even with this streak of gains, the recovery has a long way to go before it resembles pre-boycott patterns. The uptick in year-over-year travel still marked a nearly 29 per cent drop from June of 2024, with both car and air travel far below levels from two years before. That comparison matters because 2025 was already such a weak year that almost any improvement looks bigger than it really is against that low starting point.

How We Got Here: The Origins of the Boycott

The travel slowdown did not happen in isolation. It grew out of a broader consumer boycott that began in early 2025, when in the context of the 2025 United States trade war with Canada and Mexico, a boycott of the United States began in Canada, including both American consumer products and travel to the US. Then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau helped set the tone early on, as Trudeau on February 1, 2025, called on Canadians to “choose Canadian products and services rather than American ones” wherever possible.

Government voices reinforced the message on travel specifically. Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, on a February 3 appearance on Tout le monde en parle, also suggested cancelling or avoiding travel to the US. The sentiment behind the movement ran deep, since polling found that 91% of Canadians want Canada to rely less on the US, an option preferred over repairing the relationship with the US.

The Scale of the Decline Since Early 2025

The drop in Canadian visits to the U.S. has been dramatic by almost any measure. Statistics Canada data showed that Canadian-resident return trips from the United States totalled 29.1 million in 2025, down 25.4%. For context on how big that market once was, in 2024, Canadian-resident trips to the United States totalled 39 million, representing 75% of all Canadian-resident travel abroad.

The decline stretched across nearly every month of 2025 and into the start of 2026, with vehicle traffic hit especially hard. The number of Canadians taking road trips into the U.S., the most common way of visiting, dropped by 5% in March compared to March 2025 and was down 35% compared to March 2024, according to Statistics Canada. Air travel told a similar story, since there was also a 14% year-over-year decline in air travelers from Canada to the U.S. in March.

Why the Rebound Is Happening Now

Tourism watchers point to a mix of practical incentives rather than any sudden change of heart about U.S. politics. Amir Eylon of Longwoods International suggested that those with a financial incentive attached, like a 15 per cent off discount for Canadians, or on-par exchange rate offers, might have been especially attractive to travellers looking for a good deal. Local tourism operators near the border are noticing the shift too, with one chamber of commerce official noting that her area was missing Canadian tourists last year, but some businesses have begun to notice more Canadian travellers returning in 2026.

Statistics Canada itself has cautioned against reading too much into the numbers, describing part of the recent gain as a statistical quirk rather than genuine momentum. Statistics Canada noted that the monthly gain was due to a “base-year effect”: Visits had dropped so much last year, that the current gains are bouncing off a low base. In other words, small increases look more impressive only because they are being measured against an already depressed 2025.

Air Travel Still Lagging Behind Car Trips

Not every mode of travel is recovering at the same pace. While car trips have driven most of the recent gains, flights have moved in the opposite direction, since when comparing the number of trips in June 2026 with June 2024, a decline of 28.7 per cent was observed, driven by fewer trips by automobile at 29.6 per cent and by air at 25.0 per cent. Airlines have responded by scaling back their schedules rather than waiting for demand to return on its own.

The capacity cuts have been substantial industry-wide. Data from OAG indicates that major carriers have cut nearly 450,000 seats from their Canada-to-U.S. schedules for early 2026. Individual carriers have made even sharper adjustments, with WestJet and Air Canada reducing their capacity by 19% and 7% respectively, while Flair Airlines slashed its U.S.-bound seat offerings by 58%.

The Economic Toll on U.S. Tourism Businesses

The financial consequences of the boycott have been significant for American communities that depend on Canadian visitors. Historically, Canadian tourists were the biggest single source of international visitors to the U.S., comprising roughly one-quarter of all foreign travelers, according to the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Travel and Tourism Office. That spending power was considerable, since in 2024, Canadian tourists injected $20.5 billion into the U.S. economy.

Industry groups warned early on that even a modest pullback would sting, but the reality proved worse than forecasts. The U.S. Travel Association had warned 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, but the actual decline was 22%, more than double that hypothetical drop, working out to roughly $4.5 billion in lost visitor spending. Border communities have felt this most acutely, with reports that in Western New York, attendance at the Niagara Reservation, including Niagara Falls, saw a net decline as 3.6 million fewer travelers crossed from Canada compared to the previous period.

Canadians Are Spending Their Travel Dollars Elsewhere

Rather than staying home altogether, many Canadians have simply redirected their travel budgets toward other destinations. Overseas trips have been on the rise for several months running, since in March 2026, Canadian travel to overseas countries showed an upward trend for the third consecutive month, with a 4.9% increase from the same month in 2025. That pattern held into summer as well, with Canadians returning from overseas in June numbering about 873,000, roughly on par with a year earlier and seven per cent higher than in 2024.

Domestic travel has also picked up the slack in a meaningful way. Surveys suggest the shift is widespread, since 70% of Canadian respondents said they had no intention of traveling to the U.S. this year, while about 92% said they were planning to take a trip within Canada instead. Some provinces have leaned into that trend directly, and Manitoba increased the budget of Tourism Manitoba by $4.5 million for this purpose.

Americans Keep Heading North to Canada

While Canadians have pulled back from U.S. travel, the flow in the opposite direction has been building steadily. American visits to Canada have now risen for several consecutive months, with American travel to Canada increasing 10% in May, marking the fourth consecutive month of year-over-year increases. That momentum carried into summer as well, since overseas resident trips to Canada were up 5.1 per cent in June from the same month a year prior.

The World Cup added an extra layer of foot traffic north of the border this summer. Canadian broadcasters have noted that visits to Canada by Americans and overseas travellers continue to grow, helped by a boost from FIFA World Cup tourism. For a country that spent over a year watching its own residents avoid a longtime favorite destination, the reversal in inbound American visitors has offered at least some economic cushion.

What Might Come Next

Even those cheering the recent uptick are careful not to call it a turnaround. Travel consultant Amir Eylon, who has watched destination boycotts for decades, said plainly that in his 37 years in the travel industry, he had never seen anything like what the Canadians pulled off. Surveys suggest the underlying wariness has not gone away, with roughly six in 10 Canadians, 57%, saying 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 fielded in April.

Currency and cost pressures add another layer of uncertainty on top of the political fatigue. As one economist put it bluntly regarding the challenges facing U.S. tourism operators trying to win Canadians back, shifting travel habits as well as the weak Canadian dollar are both obstacles that will make it more difficult for the U.S. to win back Canadian travellers, and “these would still be very troubling numbers.” Whether June’s gains mark the start of a genuine recovery or simply a brief bounce off a very low floor will likely become clearer only after a few more months of data.

For now, the story of Canada-U.S. travel remains one of partial repair rather than full restoration. Canadians are crossing the border again in slightly greater numbers, but the totals are still running well below where they stood just two summers ago. It is progress, however small, in a relationship that both countries’ tourism industries are eager to see fully mended.