After more than a year of declines, it looks like leisure travel to the U.S. is picking up again.
The sharp drop off began last February, just a couple of weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump took office, but new figures are telling a different story.
Statistics Canada says in May, Canadian-resident return trips from the U.S. amounted to 1.9 million; that’s up 9.5 per cent from the same month in 2025.
The federal agency says most travel was done via border crossings and not through the airport.
“Driven by an increase in return trips by automobile (+15.1 per cent), the increase in overall return trips from the United States in May 2026 marked both the second consecutive month of year-over-year increases and the second increase since December 2024. In contrast, return trips from the United States by air in May decreased 5.5 per cent from May 2025,” StatsCan said in the report.
In April, the number of Canadians coming home from the U.S. totalled 1.8 million, up 1.4 per cent from the same month the previous year.
Statistics Canada also found more Americans are coming here, which is something that never really dipped while Canadians shunned our neighbours.
“U.S.-resident trips to Canada increased 10.1 per cent in May, reaching 1.6 million and marking the fourth consecutive month of year-over-year increases. In May, U.S. residents made 1.2 million trips to Canada by automobile (+12.7 per cent) and 456,600 trips by air (+3.8 per cent).”
Related:
It adds the highest number of daily arrivals in May was over the U.S.’s Memorial Day long weekend, which ran from May 23 to 25.
Not only do Canadians appear to be travelling more across the border, they’re also going abroad quite often.
As well, trips from those travelling from overseas increased.
“Overseas-resident trips to Canada totalled 513,500 in May, up 3.7 per cent from the same month one year earlier. A greater number of overseas residents arrived in Canada by air (472,700; +4.0 per cent year over year).”
April’s international travel numbers were down compared to 2025, so this may be an indication more people are planning to take off this summer.