Canadian travel habits changed sharply in 2025, with the United States losing a significant share of the vacation traffic it had long received from north of the border. Statistics Canada says Canadian visits to the U.S. for holidays, leisure and recreation fell 21.5% from 2024, while overseas travel moved decisively in the opposite direction.
The shift went well beyond one category of vacation. Total Canadian visits to the United States dropped by more than seven million, while overseas destinations attracted roughly 1.3 million additional visits and domestic travel also increased. Spending moved with those travellers: Canadians spent less in the United States but considerably more overseas. The newest 2026 figures show the situation is beginning to evolve again, but the scale of the 2025 change remains striking.
Canadian Visits to the U.S. Fell by More Than Seven Million
Canadian residents made approximately 23.1 million visits to the United States in 2025, down from 30.2 million in 2024. That works out to a 23.5% annual decline, or roughly 7.1 million fewer visits in a single year. The comparison with the last pre-pandemic year is equally notable: Canadians made 31.5 million U.S. visits in 2019, putting the 2025 total 26.7% below that level.
The United States remained an enormous Canadian travel market despite the decline. Its proximity makes everything from a weekend shopping run to a Florida winter getaway possible without the time and cost associated with long-haul travel. What changed in 2025 was the volume. Rather than Canadians simply travelling less everywhere, Statistics Canada found that domestic and overseas visits increased at the same time U.S. visits contracted, suggesting travel activity was being redistributed among destinations rather than disappearing altogether.
Vacation Travel Was Particularly Easy to Redirect
The 21.5% figure in the headline specifically refers to Canadian visits to the United States for holidays, leisure and recreation. There were about 11.9 million such visits in 2025. Statistics Canada estimates that this represented approximately 3.2 million fewer leisure-related U.S. visits than in 2024. Leisure travel represented 58.4% of Canadian international travel overall, making changes in vacation behaviour especially important to the broader outbound tourism market.
Trips with stronger personal ties proved considerably more resilient. Canadians made approximately 5.4 million U.S. visits primarily to see friends and relatives, a decline of 9% from 2024, or about 536,000 fewer visits. Someone planning a discretionary beach holiday can change countries more easily than someone travelling to attend a family gathering or visit relatives. That difference helps explain why the decline was much steeper in vacations than in family-related travel.
Overseas Destinations Had Their Strongest Year Yet Compared With 2019
While U.S. travel contracted, Canadian residents made approximately 14.3 million overseas visits in 2025. That was 10.2% higher than in 2024 and 16.3% above the 12.3 million visits recorded in 2019. In other words, overseas travel did not simply recover from the pandemic-era collapse. By 2025, it had moved significantly beyond the pre-pandemic benchmark even as U.S. travel remained well below it.
Mexico was the largest overseas destination in Statistics Canada’s annual figures, receiving approximately 2.66 million Canadian visits. The Dominican Republic followed with 984,000, narrowly ahead of France at 977,000. The United Kingdom recorded about 878,000 visits and Italy 805,000. The mix is revealing: Canadians were not shifting toward one specific type of holiday. Warm-weather destinations, European city and cultural trips, and longer international vacations were all prominent parts of the outbound market.
Europe and Asia Captured Some of the Biggest Gains
The growth in overseas travel was distributed well beyond Canada’s traditional winter sun destinations. Statistics Canada’s analysis found that Canadian visits to Europe increased 13.6% in 2025, representing approximately 579,000 additional visits from the previous year. Visits to Asia climbed even faster, rising 16.7%, or approximately 387,000 visits.
Quarterly data show how that growth appeared in practice. During the final three months of 2025, Canadians made 3.3 million overseas trips, 14.2% more than a year earlier. Mexico attracted 673,000 visits in the quarter, while France received 236,000 and the Dominican Republic 231,000. Compared with the fourth quarter of 2024, visits to Mexico increased by about 185,000 and visits to France rose by 90,000. China also recorded an increase of about 76,000 visits, illustrating how broad the expansion in long-haul Canadian travel had become.
Canadian Travel Dollars Shifted Even More Dramatically
The change becomes particularly significant when spending is considered. Canadian residents spent approximately $18.8 billion during U.S. visits in 2025, a decline of 15.1% from 2024. Statistics Canada found that leisure-related U.S. spending accounted for much of the contraction, falling by about $2.2 billion to $12.1 billion.
Overseas spending moved in the opposite direction. Canadians spent $31.3 billion on overseas visits during 2025, 17.5% more than the previous year and 67.2% more than in 2019. Leisure-related overseas spending alone climbed by $3.6 billion to $22.8 billion. Canadians travelling abroad for leisure also spent substantially more than those travelling primarily to visit friends or relatives, reflecting greater spending on accommodation, transportation, restaurants and other tourism services. Combined, U.S. and overseas travel accounted for roughly $50 billion in Canadian spending outside the country during the year.
More Canadians Also Travelled Within Canada
Not all of the visits that disappeared from the U.S. market went overseas. Domestic tourism also expanded. Canadian residents made approximately 342 million visits within Canada in 2025, up 1.5% from the previous year and 2.5% from 2019. That translated into roughly five million additional domestic visits compared with 2024.
Statistics Canada found that the combined increase in domestic travel and overseas travel almost entirely offset the 7.1-million decline in U.S. visits. Domestic tourism spending reached $81.3 billion, an 8.7% annual increase, with leisure-related spending helping drive the gain. That does not mean every cancelled U.S. holiday became a vacation elsewhere; the statistics describe aggregate travel patterns rather than the decisions of individual travellers. Still, the numbers demonstrate that Canadians remained active travellers. What changed most dramatically was where a larger share of those visits and tourism dollars ended up.
The Pattern Continued Into Early 2026
The first three months of 2026 suggested the shift had not disappeared with the end of the calendar year. Canadians made approximately 5.5 million trips that included a U.S. visit during the first quarter, 10.6% fewer than during the same period in 2025. Spending associated with those U.S. visits fell 13.6% to approximately $5 billion.
Overseas travel continued growing at the same time. Canadians made 4.6 million overseas trips from January through March, an increase of 6.2%, while overseas spending climbed 16.7% to $10.1 billion. The average overseas visit involved approximately $2,210 in spending and lasted 13.3 nights. Mexico alone attracted roughly 1.3 million Canadian visits in the quarter, followed by the Dominican Republic with 441,000 and Costa Rica with 193,000. Japan, France and Mexico also recorded notable year-over-year increases in Canadian visitors.
The Latest Numbers Show the Trend Is Starting to Become More Complicated
By July 2026, Canada’s monthly border figures were beginning to show some recovery in U.S. travel. Canadian residents returned from approximately 2.8 million U.S. trips that month, 10.1% more than in July 2025. It was the fourth consecutive year-over-year increase following 15 consecutive months of declines. U.S. return trips by air also edged up 0.6%, ending a 34-month run of year-over-year decreases.
That rebound needs context. Canadian return trips from the United States in July 2026 were still 25.6% below July 2024 levels. Overseas return trips, meanwhile, slipped 1% year over year in July, the first comparable July decline outside the pandemic period since 2019. The monthly figures also come from Statistics Canada’s Frontier Counts program, while the detailed vacation and spending figures are drawn primarily from the National Travel Survey. Together, they suggest a travel market still adjusting after an unusually large change in Canadian destination choices during 2025.
