Canadians once poured across the border. They filled hotels in Florida, shopped in Buffalo, skied in Vermont and closed deals in New York and San Francisco. That flow has slowed to a trickle. New cell-phone tracking reveals a 42% drop in Canadian visits to American cities. The decline exceeds earlier estimates from border counts. And it shows no sign of reversing in 2026.
The trigger sits in Washington. President Donald Trump’s second-term tariffs, threats to annex Canada as the 51st state and sharp rhetoric produced a backlash few in the travel industry saw coming. What began as trade friction morphed into a sustained shift in behavior. Canadians chose to vacation at home or fly elsewhere. American border towns, hotels and convention centers absorbed the blow.
Business Insider first highlighted fresh University of Toronto research that used device data to map the damage. Researchers Karen Chapple, Yihoi Jung and Jeff Allen tracked movement between April 2024 and March 2026. Their “Mapping Tariffs” project recorded an average 42% year-over-year decline across 267 U.S. cities. Only three posted gains. The figure dwarfs the roughly 25% drop suggested by traditional customs data.
“The top 20 cities were a number of big metros that aren’t exactly known as, you know, big tourist areas,” Chapple told Business Insider. Business travel suffered alongside leisure. Flights to San Francisco, once packed with Canadian tech workers, thinned noticeably. “I fly to San Francisco all the time,” Chapple said. “It’s a tech flight to San Francisco — that’s who’s with me on the flight.”
High-tech hubs such as New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Houston recorded sharp falls. So did auto-linked cities in Michigan. Grand Rapids saw one of the steepest drops, tied to disrupted supply chains with Ontario. “High-tech and financial centres like San Francisco and Houston appear to be experiencing reductions not only in tourists but also in business-related travel, reflecting changing travel preferences due to broader economic uncertainties on both sides of the border,” the researchers wrote. Tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos complicated long-standing partnerships. Grand Rapids experienced the second-largest decline, “likely due to the tariffs.”
The pain spreads beyond business. Leisure destinations felt it first. Canadian road trips to the U.S. fell more than 35% over two years, Forbes reported in April. Air travel declined 14% in March 2026 compared with the prior year. The slump has now run 14 straight months. In 2024 Canadians made more than 20 million visits and spent $20.5 billion. A 22% drop in 2025 alone wiped out roughly $4.5 billion in spending, according to U.S. Travel Association estimates cited across multiple outlets.
That figure aligns with earlier warnings. The association had cautioned that even a 10% reduction would cost $2.1 billion and threaten 140,000 hospitality jobs. Actual losses exceeded those projections. The BBC put the projected hit for 2025 at $5.7 billion. American tourism operators watched Canadian snowbirds skip Florida winters. Airlines cut routes. Air Transat suspended all flights to Florida this summer. WestJet dropped service to several U.S. cities including Orlando.
Canadian sentiment turned sharply negative. Polls captured the change. An Ipsos survey in early 2025 found 65% of Canadians would avoid U.S. travel. Angus Reid reported 46% viewed the United States as an “enemy or potential threat.” Views of Trump stood at 77% unfavorable. Rhetoric about annexation and “the 51st state” compounded the effect of 25% tariffs on many Canadian goods.
Canadians redirected their dollars at home. Domestic tourism revenue hit a record C$59 billion from May to August 2025, up 6% from the year before, according to Destination Canada data reported by the BBC. Visits to Mexico rose 12%. Overseas travel increased. For three consecutive months more Canadians flew abroad than drove to the United States. “In my 37 years in the travel industry, I have never seen anything like what the Canadians have pulled off,” Amir Eylon, president and CEO of Longwoods International, told Forbes.
The impact landed hardest along the border. New York saw 21% fewer Canadian visitors in 2025, or 3.6 million fewer travelers, according to state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s analysis. Passenger vehicle crossings in the Buffalo-Niagara region dropped 16.3%. Hotels posted higher vacancy rates. Restaurants and shops in Lewiston and Niagara Falls reported empty tables. “Canadians don’t want to come here any more,” one business owner told The Guardian in March.
Similar stories emerged from Washington state, where vehicle crossings fell more than 24%. Vermont ski resorts missed their usual Quebec clientele. New Hampshire suffered a 30% decline, which Sen. Jeanne Shaheen attributed to “the loss of trust and goodwill because of this administration’s rhetoric around Canada.” The Joint Economic Committee Democrats released a December 2025 report documenting harm in every U.S. state that shares a border with Canada. Hotel vacancies rose. Sales fell. “Going back for generations, Canadians have visited New Hampshire and many other states along the U.S.-Canada border to see family or friends, stay in our hotels, share a meal at our restaurants, and shop at our stores,” Sen. Maggie Hassan said in the report.
Yet the picture is not uniform. Canada’s own tourism sector gained. U.S. visitors to Canada rose modestly in early 2026. FIFA World Cup matches hosted in both countries this summer could provide a partial offset, though U.S. organizers worry the new $250 visa integrity fee may deter some international arrivals. For now the cross-border imbalance persists.
Cell-phone data adds depth to the story. Traditional counts at land borders missed shorter trips and business travel routed through airports. The University of Toronto team defined a trip as a device that left Canada, stopped in the U.S. and returned. Their method captured nuances border statistics overlook. The 42% average decline likely understates the effect in certain sectors and cities.
Recovery remains uncertain. It took three years for Canadian travel to rebound after the COVID-19 collapse. This time political tension lingers. Tariffs remain in place. Trade talks have stalled repeatedly. New fingerprinting requirements for longer Canadian stays add friction. Sentiment surveys show little improvement in early 2026.
Businesses adapted where they could. Some U.S. border towns pivoted to domestic markets or sports events. Niagara Falls operators courted American day-trippers. Duty-free shops posted 40-50% revenue losses. A Centre for Economic Policy Research analysis found regions most dependent on Canadian visitors shed 6% of jobs by mid-2025.
The episode reveals how quickly economic interdependence can unravel. Canada and the U.S. share the world’s longest undefended border and integrated supply chains. For decades that closeness fueled seamless travel and commerce. Now friction dominates. Canadians buy more Canadian goods. They vacation more at home. They view their southern neighbor with fresh caution.
Whether the shift proves permanent depends on policy choices ahead. Tariffs can be adjusted. Rhetoric can soften. Yet trust, once eroded, rebuilds slowly. The data from phones, border posts and hotel ledgers all tell the same story. Canadians voted with their feet. The U.S. tourism economy is still counting the cost.
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