Statistics Canada has released its complete international travel numbers for June, offering a fresh look at travel between Canada and the United States. Canadians are heading to the U.S. more than last year, but cross-border travel remains well below where it stood before recent political and trade tensions. The new numbers show Canadian return trips from the U.S. have increased for three straight months after falling year over year for 15 consecutive months. But travel south of the border remains almost one-quarter below its 2024 level. Canadians returned from 2.3 million trips to the U.S. in June, up five per cent from the same month last year. That was still down 24.6 per cent from June 2024. The increase has been driven by road travel. Canadians returned from 1.7 million U.S. trips by automobile—up 7.6 per cent—and about two-thirds of those were same-day trips. Air travel continued to fall, down 1.2 per cent to 546,500 trips. Cruise travel rose 13.6 per cent but accounted for a much smaller 20,000 trips. People CTV News spoke with Wednesday had mixed feelings on Canada-U.S. travel. “I think we should have good relationships, and I’m not particularly excited by what’s going on,” said one person. “I am travelling to the U.S. for a wedding, but otherwise, I would not be,” said another. More Americans are also coming north. United States residents made three million trips to Canada in June, up 6.1 per cent from last year and the fifth straight month of growth. Again, the increase came mainly by road, while arrivals by air fell slightly. Canadians returned from just over 906,000 overseas trips in June, essentially flat from last year. But the number of overseas visitors coming to Canada rose 3.4 per cent to 811,000. The biggest percentage increase came from Oceania, up more than 16 per cent. Statistics Canada says that coincided with the World Cup, when Australia and New Zealand played matches in Vancouver. Arrivals from the 15 overseas countries that played World Cup matches in Canada were up nearly 29 per cent from last June.
