Tourists at Sao Beach Bar in Phu Quoc Vietnam, on Friday. Canadian travel abroad outpaced ground trips to the U.S. for the first time since at least 1972, excluding the COVID-19 pandemic, StatsCan says.Allison Joyce/Getty Images
The travel boycott of the United States marked a new milestone in January, with more Canadian residents returning from trips overseas than re-entering by vehicle from the U.S.
It was the first time outside of the pandemic lockdown period that Canadian travel abroad outpaced ground trips to the U.S. since at least 1972, when Statistics Canada began keeping records, the agency said.
In January, 1.5 million Canadian residents returned from overseas, a jump of 10.6 per cent from the same month a year earlier. By contrast, the number of residents crossing back into Canada from the U.S. by automobile fell 26.3 per cent to 1.3 million over the same period.
The total number of Canadians returning from the U.S. in January, including by air and boat, is still higher than overseas travel, but is also falling – total return trips from the U.S. in January dropped 22 per cent from the year before.
The travel boycott, which took hold in early 2025 in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada and his rhetoric targeting Canadian sovereignty, has resulted in 13 consecutive months of year-over-year declines in travel to the U.S.
American tourism hot spots have taken notice of the missing Canadians in their hotels and restaurants. Canada is the largest source of international tourism to the U.S. and in 2024, travellers from Canada generated US$20.5-billion in spending and supported 140,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Travel Association.
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A new study published by the London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research estimated that by mid-2025, U.S. markets most exposed to the drop in Canadian travel experienced employment declines of about 6 per cent at small businesses in the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors, relative to businesses in less exposed markets.
“The U.S.-Canada case illustrates a channel of harm that trade policy debates often overlook,” wrote the study’s authors, economics professors André Kurmann at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Étienne Lalé at York University and Julien Martin at the Université du Québec à Montréal. “Geopolitical tensions can deter foreign visitors and hit the economy fast. Such shocks strike specific places and non-tradable sectors that may find it difficult to absorb the blow.”
The sharp drop-off in southbound travel has prompted tourism officials from several states to plead with Canadians to return.
In Las Vegas, where the latest statistics from Harry Reid International Airport show the number of passengers arriving on WestJet and Air Canada flights plunged 25.2 per cent in 2025 from the year before, some casinos have offered to accept the Canadian dollar at par.
Last month, a pair of U.S. senators – one a Democrat from Nevada and the other a Republican from Kansas – introduced the USMCA Travel and Tourism Resiliency Act to push the Trump administration to establish a travel and tourism working group as part of the upcoming review of the North American trade deal.
What’s unclear is whether the continuing Iran war and surging fuel costs, which have resulted in steeper airline ticket prices, will deter Canadians from travelling overseas and prompt them to stay closer to home.