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Return trips by Canadian residents from the U.S. fell 22 per cent in January compared with a year earlier, according to the latest data.
Statistics Canada says those figures released Monday marked the 13th straight monthly decline, and come after nearly a year of U.S. tariffs and President Donald Trump’s repeated threats that Canada should become the “51st state.”
The agency says that because travel trends among Canadian residents “shifted alongside political tensions” with the U.S. in 2025, it also included comparisons with January 2024 for additional perspective.
There was a 22 per cent drop in Canadian resident return trips from the U.S. in January 2026 compared with 2025, and from January 2026 to January 2024, the decline was 23.2 per cent.
By automobile, Canadians returned from 1.3 million trips to the U.S. in January, which was a drop of 26.3 per cent from a year earlier. Statistics Canada adds that more than two-thirds — 67.5 per cent — of those were same-day trips.
Return trips by air from the U.S. by Canadian residents in January totalled 753,400, which marked a 12.8 per cent decline from the same period in 2025.
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Canadians were still eager to travel in January, though, with the agency reporting a 10.6 per cent increase in Canadian resident return trips from overseas destinations.
In total, Canadians returned from 3.6 million trips abroad in January, with 2.1 million being trips from the U.S.
Statistics Canada distinguishes “abroad” as anywhere outside of Canada’s borders, while “overseas” implies any abroad destination other than the U.S.
Airlines and travel companies are taking note of the trend too, with WestJet saying last month that it plans to suspend more than a dozen routes between Canadian and U.S. cities for the summer 2026 travel season.
“We saw a notable decline in transborder travel demand throughout 2025,” Julia Kaiser, media relations advisor for WestJet, said in a statement from February.
“As a result, we made timely decisions to modify our network to stay aligned with where Canadians want to go.”
The Buy Canadian movement began last year as the trade war and Trump’s comments soured consumer sentiments.
This has fuelled a form of consumer patriotism, where Canadians are motivated or more inclined to buy goods and services that appear to support the Canadian economy.
A Global News Ipsos poll from September 2025 found more than half — 56 per cent — of Canadian respondents said they had bought Canadian products or investments in the weeks prior as a direct result of trade tensions between Canada and the U.S.
The sentiment was more common among baby boomers at 70 per cent, with Ipsos saying that older generations typically have more purchasing power relative to younger generations and therefore may be more able to support domestic businesses.
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