The number of Canadian residents returning from trips to the United States declined again in August, dropping to 2.9 million trips or a 29.7 per cent decrease from a year ago, according to the latest monthly

travel data from Statistics Canada. While the number of trips to Canada by U.S. residents was also down in August, decreasing 1.4 per cent from 2024 to 3.2 million trips, there were more U.S. residents travelling north of the border than Canadian residents travelling south.

This is the third time since June 2006 (excluding August and September 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic) that the ratio of American residents travelling to Canada was higher than that of Canadians travelling to the States. U.S. residents represented 78.1 per cent of all non-resident trips to Canada in August.

Return trips to the U.S. accounted for 70.2 per cent of all trips abroad taken by Canadian residents during August. Overseas trips by Canadians were up 8.6 per cent from last year.

Overall, Canadian residents returned from 4.2 million trips abroad in August, down 21.5 per cent compared with 2024.

Canadian residents also took fewer road trips from the U.S., with return trips by automobile declining by 32.6 per cent to 2.2 million in August.

Canadian travel by air from the United States also decreased for the month, down 17 per cent from 2024. But return trips by air from overseas countries was up 9.1 per cent to 1.2 million trips.

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The number of non-U.S. residents travelling to Canada from overseas was up 9.2 per cent to 886,000 arrivals compared to August 2024. The majority of overseas-resident arrivals were by air.

The increase in overseas-resident visits to Canada was driven primarily by travellers from Europe and Asia, with the United Kingdom, France and Germany accounting for a third of all overseas arrivals.