Canadian travel to the U.S. down 30% from before Trump's tariff war
Trade tensions with the United States have rerouted 30 per cent of Canadian travel across the border, according to Statistics Canada .
Return trips to the U.S. by Canadian residents fell 31.5 per cent in February 2026 compared with February 2024, putting a spotlight on the erosion wrought by trade tensions, the data agency said on Tuesday. On a year-over-year basis, return car trips from the U.S. by Canadians fell 1 2.9 per cent in February and 1 7.6 per cent by air.
“In February last year, we were right in the middle of the bad feelings, and people were still changing their vacation plans and their travel plans at that point,” Douglas Porter, chief economist at BMO Economics, said, adding that the comparison with two years ago helps to provide a fuller picture of how Canadian attitudes are changing.
He said travel levels have rebounded from the “extreme lows that they hit around the middle part of last year, but are still way, way down from pre-tariff war levels.”
U.S. President Donald Trump unleashed his tariff war against Canada on Feb. 1, 2025, imposing a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian products excluding energy, which faced a 10 per cent levy. A few days later, the order was paused for 30 days to take effect on March 4.
Trump also let loose a barrage of verbal attacks on Canada, including a call for it to become the 51st state, angering Canadians and fomenting an anti-American sentiment.
It appears Canadians could be replacing trips to the U.S. with getaways abroad.
Trips overseas by Canadian residents by air rose 7.2 per cent in February compared with a year ago, and, for the second straight month, the number of overseas trips taken by air was greater than those to the U.S. by car — 1.3 million versus one million — the agency said.
“What really stands out is that it’s not as if Canadians aren’t travelling,” Porter said. “When you look at the number of trips abroad, they’re still quite, quite strong.”
The Statistics Canada numbers echo what travel agency Flight Centre Canada is seeing on the ground.
“Canadians aren’t travelling less — they’re simply travelling differently,” a company spokesperson said in an email, noting the while travel to the the U.S. continues to “soften,” it is growing, especially to places such as Japan, Portugal, Costa Rica and the Caribbean.
Several airline s have responded to the changes by cutting back routes to the U.S.
For example, WestJet Airlines in February said it was cancelling routes to 10 U.S. cities this summer, and Air Transat AT Inc. and Air Canada have also since cut routes.
But as Canadians continue to turn their backs on travelling to the U.S., more Americans came to Canada for the first time in a year.
U.S. resident trips to Canada rose 6.1 per cent in February from a year ago, with trips by automobile up 6.4 per cent and those by air up 4.9 per cent.
Porter said the overall increase wasn’t “particularly strong,” but it looks like it has “almost normalized.”
Canada also drew more visitors from overseas, as trips rose 10.5 per cent in February from a year ago.
Porter said Canada could be attracting overseas travellers not just as an anti-Trump play, but because the Canadian dollar is low.
“Broadly, yes, the (Canadian dollar) has come back a bit over the past year, but, historically speaking, 73 cents is still relatively weak (compared with the U.S. dollar),” he said, adding that the loonie is also weak against currencies such as the euro.
Porter also said Canadians are travelling less to the U.S., especially by car, because of the weak domestic economy.
“Job growth is next to zero. The economy struggled to grow last year,” he said. “Consumers are cautious.”
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