Statistics Canada taps into May 2025 travel numbers

Statistics Canada reports that trips to Canada by overseas residents continued to decline in May 2025, with 575,100 overseas residents arriving in Canada, down 6.6% from May 2024, and marking the eighth consecutive month of year-over-year decline. In May 2025, the majority (79.8%) of overseas-resident arrivals were by air.

According to Statistics Canada, there were fewer arrivals from both Europe (-4.1%) and Asia (-11.3%) — the two largest source markets for overseas visitors to Canada – and that contributed the most to the year-over-year decline in overseas arrivals in May.

In May, the top three countries of residence for overseas visitors were the United Kingdom (78,400), India (61,300) and France (48,600), accounting for 32.7% of all overseas arrivals in Canada.

As well, trips abroad by Canadian residents continued to decrease, with Canadian residents returning from 3.4 million trips abroad in May, representing a 22.5% decrease and marking the fifth consecutive month of year-over-year decline. Of those trips, 53.1% were by air, down 3.1% year over year.

The number of Canadian-resident return trips by air from the United States in May decreased by 17.4% from May 2024. Meanwhile, Canadian-resident return trips by air from overseas countries increased 9.3% in May 2025 compared with one year earlier.

In May, Canadian-resident return trips from the United States by automobile declined by 37.4% to 1.5 million. Of these trips, 63.9% were same-day trips.

Seasonally Adjusted Results

Statistics Canada also notes that tourism is influenced by seasonal effects (e.g., actual seasons and holidays such as Canada Day and Thanksgiving) and by calendar effects (e.g., number of weekends in a month). All statistics in this section are based on seasonally adjusted data.

And based on a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, the overall number of arrivals in Canada by US residents rose by 2.1% in May. Increases in arrivals by air (+2.5%) and by automobile (+2.7%) contributed to the monthly growth.

Also, on a seasonally adjusted basis in May, the number of overseas-resident arrivals in Canada increased by 2.0% on a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, led by residents of Oceania (+11.5%) and Asia (+2.8%). By volume, increases in the number of visitors from Australia (+12.2%) and Japan (+9.1%) helped offset the decrease in the number of visitors from Italy (-22.1%).

On the other hand, Canadian residents returned from fewer trips abroad for a fifth consecutive month, down 3.1% in May. This decline was the result of a reduction in automobile trips to the United States (-2.2%), which accounted for 43.6% of overall Canadian-resident trips abroad.

Trips by air to the United States (-4.2%) were also down, and they accounted for 21.4% of all Canadian-resident trips abroad.

In May, Canadian-resident trips overseas by air, which accounted for 32.9% of all Canadian-resident trips abroad, declined 4.0% compared with April.

Focus on Canada and the United States

In May, Canadian residents returned from 2.3 million trips to the United States, representing a 31.9% decrease from the same month in 2024 and accounting for 67.7% of all trips taken by Canadian residents in May 2025.

Meanwhile, US residents took 2.0 million trips to Canada in May, down 5.6% from the same month in 2024 and representing 77.3% of all non-resident trips to Canada in May 2025.