Leading indicator of international arrivals to Canada, September 2025
Released: 2025-10-10
995,746
September 2025
1.9% 
(12-month change)
1,341,461
September 2025
-7.0% 
(12-month change)
1,062,069
September 2025
-5.3%
(12-month change)
1,396,529
September 2025
-34.8%
(12-month change)
In September 2025, the preliminary number of international arrivals to Canada (returning Canadian residents and non-residents combined) by air and automobile was 4.8 million, down 15.6% from September 2024. This was the eighth consecutive month of year-over-year declines.
Non-resident trips to Canada by air increase
In September 2025, non-resident arrivals to Canada by air totalled 1.0 million, up 1.9% from September 2024 (Chart 1). The September 2025 total comprised 478,900 arrivals by US residents (-0.4%) and 516,800 arrivals by overseas residents (+4.2%).
According to the daily traffic data, Thursday, September 11 saw the highest number of arrivals of US residents (20,400), while Saturday, September 13 saw the highest number of arrivals of overseas residents (20,300).
Chart 1
Non-resident trips to Canada by commercial aircraft, September, 2019 to 2025
Infographic 1
Trips to Canada by commercial aircraft, by geography of residence, September 2025
Canadian-resident return trips by air decline
In September 2025, Canadian-resident return trips by air from abroad stood at 1.3 million, down 7.0% from the same month one year earlier (Chart 2). Though the number of returning Canadian-resident trips from overseas countries by air increased 3.9% from September 2024 to 1.0 million in September 2025, the number of returning Canadian-resident trips by air from the United States declined 27.1% to 372,000.
In September, the highest number of returning Canadian-resident arrivals per day was observed on Labour Day, Monday, September 1 (66,800), and the lowest was seen on Wednesday, September 10 (35,500). Also, arrivals on Tuesday, September 30 (49,000), which corresponds to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, were 15.9% higher than the average for the remaining Tuesdays of September.
Chart 2
Canadian-resident return trips from abroad by commercial aircraft, September, 2019 to 2025
US-resident trips to Canada by automobile decrease
In September 2025, the number of US-resident trips to Canada by automobile (1.1 million) declined by 5.3% from the same month in 2024 (Chart 3). This was the eighth consecutive month of year-over-year declines.
From Friday, September 19, to Saturday, September 20, 2025, an average of 54,900 US-resident arrivals per day was observed. This average was 3.6% higher than the average for the remaining Friday-to-Saturday periods in September.
Chart 3
US-resident trips to Canada by automobile, September, 2019 to 2025
Infographic 2
Trips to Canada by automobile, by country of residence, September 2025
Canadian-resident return trips from the United States by automobile decline
In September 2025, the number of Canadian-resident return trips by automobile from the United States totalled 1.4 million, a steep decline (-34.8%) from the same month in 2024 (Chart 4), marking the ninth consecutive month of year-over-year declines.
The highest number of returning Canadian-resident arrivals was observed on Labour Day, Monday, September 1, 2025 (119,500). This number was 175.4% higher than the average for the other Mondays in September. Also, arrivals on Tuesday, September 30 (46,600), the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, were 32.0% higher than the average for the remaining Tuesdays of September. By volume, the increase was driven by British Columbia (+99.2%), Ontario (+8.4%) and Manitoba (+117.1%).
Chart 4
Canadian-resident return trips from the United States by automobile, September, 2019 to 2025
Focus on Canada and the United States
In September 2025, the number of arrivals to Canada by US residents by air decreased 0.4% from the same month in 2024, while arrivals by automobile decreased 5.3%.
Meanwhile, Canadian-resident return trips from the United States by air fell 27.1% in September 2025 compared with the same month one year earlier. Canadian-resident return trips by automobile dropped 34.8%.
For more data and insights on areas touched by the socio-economic relationship between Canada and the United States, see the Focus on Canada and the United States webpage.
Explore tourism data
To further explore current and historical data in an interactive format, see Frontier Counts: Interactive Dashboard.
For other tourism-related information, see the Travel and Tourism Statistics portal.
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Note to readers
This release provides an early indicator of travel based on preliminary data on international arrivals to Canada for September 2025 for air and automobile (arrivals by automobile made by overseas residents are not included in this release). Complete counts will be available with the release of "Travel between Canada and other countries" on November 20.
For more information on concepts, definitions, data sources and methods, refer to Frontier Counts.
Data sources
All counts of arrivals by air are from commercial aircraft and are produced exclusively using primary inspection kiosk (PIK) data received from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). PIKs were deployed at Toronto Pearson International Airport Terminal 1 on June 22, 2021, and, as of July 2021, these arrivals are included in the total counts, which has consequently improved coverage. In 2024, PIKs captured 90.3% of all commercial air arrivals.
Counts of arrivals to the country by automobile through land ports equipped with the CBSA's automated Integrated Primary Inspection Line (IPIL) system represent a subset of US-resident trips and Canadian-resident return trips by automobile. In 2024, IPIL land ports captured 88.9% of all automobile entries.
Please be advised that incomplete PIK and IPIL Highway data were received from CBSA for September 28 and 29, 2025. As a result, data imputation has been applied to the Leading indicator to approximate the full traveller volume for these dates. Should the data be received from CBSA, it will be used in the September 2025 reference month for "Travel between Canada and other countries" on November 20 to provide counts that are based entirely on data received rather than imputations.
Next release
The Leading indicator of international arrivals to Canada for October 2025 will be released on November 12.
Products
The product "Frontier Counts: Interactive Dashboard," part of the Data Visualization Products series (71-607-X), is available.
The article "Recent changes in Canadian-resident travel to the United States" is available.
Episode 27 of the Eh Sayers podcast "Canadians just aren't California Dreamin' these days" is available.
The infographic "Tourism activity, 2024" is also available.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
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