Canadian trips to U.S. edge up slightly despite lingering travel boycott

A year and a half after Canadians began ditching trips to the U.S., at least some are hitting the road again—though not in anywhere close to normal numbers.

Canadian resident return trips from the U.S. inched up 3.2 percent in June compared to June 2025, according to Statistics Canada data released Monday. It's the third consecutive month of growth, following a 9.5 percent rise in May and 1.4 percent increase in April. The June increase was fuelled entirely by car travel, with 5.2 percent more Canadians returning from the U.S. via vehicle. By air, return travel for June actually declined 3.8 percent year-over-year.

But the modest uptick masks the bigger picture: compared to June 2024—before trade war tensions and U.S. President Donald Trump's annexation threats pushed Canadians to avoid American destinations—Canadian return travel is down a whopping 28.7 percent.

Wayne Smith, professor and director of Toronto Metropolitan University's Institute for Hospitality and Tourism Research, views the recent increases as a slight "normalization" rather than a shift away from the "elbows up" movement. "I think this is pretty much our new normal," he said, noting that travel numbers have persistently hovered lower for the past 18 months. U.S. tourism officials, however, remain cautiously optimistic that travel will gradually recover, partly due to ad campaigns aimed at mending cross-border relations.