HayDmitriy / Depositphotos.com
OTTAWA — Travel by Canadians to the United States continued to decline in January, marking more than a year of steady decreases, according to new data from Statistics Canada.
The agency says Canadian residents returned from 2.1 million trips to the United States in January 2026, down 22 per cent compared with the same month a year earlier and the 13th consecutive month of year over year decline.
The drop was most pronounced among automobile travel, which fell 26.3 per cent to 1.3 million trips, with more than two thirds classified as same day returns. Air travel from the United States also declined, falling 12.8 per cent to about 753,000 trips.
Overall, Canadian residents returned from 3.6 million trips abroad in January, down 11 per cent from a year earlier.
In contrast, travel patterns shifted toward overseas destinations. Canadian resident return trips from overseas countries rose 10.6 per cent to 1.5 million, surpassing return trips from the United States by automobile for the first time on record outside of the pandemic period.
Travel into Canada from the United States was relatively stable.
U.S. residents made 1.1 million trips to Canada in January, down just 0.3 per cent year over year. Automobile arrivals dipped slightly, while air travel from the United States rose 2.7 per cent.
Arrivals from overseas visitors declined 2.1 per cent to just over 303,000, driven largely by fewer travellers from Asia, though partially offset by gains from Europe and the Americas excluding the United States.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, Canadian resident return trips from abroad fell 2.2 per cent in January, while U.S. resident arrivals increased 4.7 per cent.
Statistics Canada says the decline in travel to the United States comes amid shifting travel patterns and broader changes in the Canada U.S. relationship.
Comments