Surprisingly, Canadians travelling to the U.S. rose in April for the first time since 2024

A car crosses the border between Canada and the U.S. in British Columbia in 2009. Photo by Sam Leung /Postmedia

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In a rare reversal to a year-long trend, Statistics Canada found that return arrivals by Canadians, both from the United States and the rest of the world, increased in April over the same month in 2025. It was the first year-over-year increase in those numbers in more than a year.

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On the U.S. side, return trips of Canadians by air fell 8.1 per cent in April compared to a year earlier. But return trips by automobile rose by 5.8 per cent in the same month, leading to an overall increase in Canadian-resident return trips from the United States of 1.4 per cent from the same month in 2025.

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That made April the first month since December 2024 that a year-over-year increase in overall return trips from the United States had occurred.

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Meanwhile, Canadian-resident return trips from abroad (that is, from the U.S. as well as overseas countries) stood at 3.2 million in April 2026, up three per cent from the same month one year earlier. This was the first gain in numbers on this statistic since January 2025

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In April, Canadian-resident return trips from the United States totalled 1.8 million, up 1.4 per cent from the same month in 2025. And Canadian-resident return trips from overseas by air totalled 1.3 million, up 5.3 per cent from the same month one year earlier.

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The highest number of return trips from abroad was on April 6, Easter Monday, with a total of 149,000, while the lowest was Wednesday, April 22, with 85,600.

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The federal agency also noted that U.S.-resident trips to Canada by road and by air were up in April, marking the third consecutive month of year-over-year increases in that statistic.

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U.S.-resident trips to Canada increased 7.3 per cent in April, reaching 1.2 million and divided between automobile trips (870,400 for a 6.1 per cent increase) and air travel (320,500 for an increase of 10.8 per cent).

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As with Canadian trips, the Easter long weekend produced the greatest number of U.S. trips to Canada, while the lowest total was on Tuesday, April 14.

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Additionally, overseas-resident trips to Canada totalled 366,800 in April, down 3.1 per cent from the same month one year earlier.

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