Trade · 4 min read
Canadian trips to the U.S. are rising again, but remain 23% below August 2024
Five straight months of gains have followed 15 straight months of declines. About one lost trip in four has come back.
Canadians made 3.2 million return trips from the United States in August 2026, up 9.3% from a year earlier, Statistics Canada reported on Oct. 22. It was the fifth straight month above the year before, after 15 straight months below it. Even so, August trips were 23.2% below August 2024.
Travel to the U.S. always peaks in summer and dips in winter, so the fairest test removes that pattern. On Statistics Canada's seasonally adjusted figures, monthly trips fell from 3.34 million in August 2024 to 2.24 million in August 2025, a drop of 33%. They have since climbed to 2.53 million. That wins back 26% of what was lost, and leaves trips well under the 3.65 million a month of 2019.
The fall was fast and the climb is slow
The sharpest monthly falls came from February to April 2025, as U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods were announced and then took effect on March 4. The timing is hard to ignore, but this data counts border crossings and doesn't record why anyone stayed home.
The gains are recent enough that they haven't changed the year's total much. From January to August 2026, Canadians made 19.9 million return trips, about the same as the 20.0 million over those months in 2025, because the winter months still ran below the year before. Over the 12 months to August 2026 there were 29.0 million trips, against 38.6 million two years earlier.
Car trips fell furthest, flights have barely recovered
| Trips per month, adjusted for season | Aug. 2024 | Lowest point | Aug. 2026 | Compared with Aug. 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| By car | 2.41M | 1.49M | 1.74M | −28% |
| By air | 0.84M | 0.69M | 0.72M | −15% |
| Same-day | 1.61M | 0.99M | 1.18M | −27% |
| Overnight | 1.73M | 1.20M | 1.34M | −22% |
Same-day trips, the quick runs for gas, groceries or a game, led both the drop and the rebound. Flights fell the least but have regained the least, which fits the airport-by-airport picture.
The rebound reaches almost every province, measured by where travellers crossed back into Canada. Most large provinces were up 8% to 12% from August 2025; Alberta rose just 2%. The gap with August 2024 is widest in New Brunswick (−36%) and Quebec (−33%), and narrower in Ontario (−19%) and Alberta (−14%).
A cheaper U.S. dollar isn't the reason. It cost an average of 1.39 Canadian dollars in August 2026, slightly more than the 1.38 a year earlier.
Overseas trips did not replace them
Overseas travel grew while U.S. travel fell, but not by nearly enough. Return trips from other countries rose from 12.4 million in the 12 months to August 2024 to 14.5 million in the 12 months to August 2026. That is 2.1 million more, against 9.6 million fewer trips to the U.S. Total trips abroad fell 15%.
That growth may now be fading. Overseas trips fell 1.0% in July and 2.0% in August compared with a year earlier, just as U.S. trips picked up. Americans, meanwhile, keep coming north: their trips to Canada rose 4.3% in August to 3.3 million, the seventh straight increase.
At the past year's pace, monthly trips wouldn't return to the August 2024 level until about 2029. The rebound is real, and so far it has mostly shown how far there is to go.
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