National Travel Survey and Visitor Travel Survey, second quarter 2025
Released: 2025-12-02
90.6 million
Second quarter 2025
10.9% 
(year-over-year change)
$20.3 billion
Second quarter 2025
13.5%
(year-over-year change)
8.9 million
Second quarter 2025
-12.1% 
(year-over-year change)
$12.9 billion
Second quarter 2025
8.1%
(year-over-year change)
8.0 million
Second quarter 2025
-3.1%
(year-over-year change)
$8.3 billion
Second quarter 2025
10.3%
(year-over-year change)
Highlights
During the second quarter of 2025, Canadian residents took 99.3 million trips within Canada and abroad, up 8.5% from the same quarter in 2024. From April to June 2025, visitors from the United States and overseas countries made 8.0 million trips to Canada, a 3.1% year-over-year decrease.
Domestic tourism: Canadian-resident visits within Canada increase
In the second quarter, Canadian residents took 90.6 million trips that included a domestic visit, up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. Among these visits, 58.6 million were same-day (+12.4%), while 32.0 million were overnight (+8.4%).
From April to June, Canadian residents spent $20.3 billion on domestic tourism, up 13.5% year over year. For same-day visits, Canadian residents spent an average of $101 per visit. For overnight visits, Canadian residents spent on average $449 per visit, and the average visit length was 2.6 nights.
Chart 1
Domestic visits by Canadian residents, by main trip purpose and visit duration, second quarter 2025
Chart 2
Proportion of visits and expenditures by Canadian residents within Canada, by province or territory of visit, second quarter 2025
Outbound tourism: Canadian-resident visits to the United States decrease, while visits to overseas countries increase
In the second quarter, Canadian residents made 8.9 million trips that included a visit abroad (-12.1% from the same quarter of 2024).
Canadian residents took 5.6 million trips that included an outbound visit to the United States in the second quarter of 2025, down 21.6% year over year. Among these visits, 39.1% were same-day. Expenditures during visits to the United States totalled $4.8 billion, a decline of 14.9% from the second quarter of 2024. In the United States, Canadian residents spent an average of $125 per same-day visit in the second quarter of 2025. For overnight stays, Canadian residents spent on average $1,312 per visit, and the average visit length was 7.3 nights.
From April to June, Canadian residents took 3.3 million trips that included an outbound visit to an overseas country (+10.4% year over year) and spent $8.1 billion overseas (+28.4%). On average, Canadian residents spent $2,435 per visit, and the average visit length was 13.2 nights.
Mexico (471,000 visits) was the most visited overseas country by Canadian residents in the second quarter, followed by France (319,000) and the United Kingdom (279,000). Compared with the second quarter of 2024, Japan (+110,000 visits; +88.0%), Spain (+105,000; +70.5%) and France (+105,000; +49.1%) were among the countries with the largest volume increases in the second quarter of 2025. Meanwhile, declines were seen for the Dominican Republic (-49,000; -20.5%), Cuba (-38,000; -21.1%) and Thailand (-33,000; -67.3%).
Chart 3
Top 10 overseas countries visited by Canadian residents, by age group, second quarter 2025
Inbound tourism: US visitors to Canada decrease, while overseas visitors increase
During the second quarter, US residents took 6.1 million trips to Canada, down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. Among these trips, 41.6% were same-day. While visiting Canada, US residents spent $4.6 billion (+14.8%). On average, US residents spent $163 per same-day trip. For overnight trips, they spent on average $1,191 per trip, with an average trip length of 5.1 nights.
From April to June, overseas residents took 1.9 million trips to Canada (+5.8%). Spending by overseas visitors to Canada totalled $3.7 billion (+5.1%). These visitors spent on average $1,957 per trip and the average trip length was 16.8 nights.
The United Kingdom (250,000 trips) ranked first for the most visitors to Canada in the second quarter, followed by India (185,000) and France (147,000). Compared with the second quarter of 2024, the United Kingdom (+21,000 trips; +9.2%) and China (+16,000; +19.5%) were among the countries with the largest volume increases in the second quarter of 2025. Meanwhile, a decline was seen in the number of visitors from France (-4,000; -2.6%).
Chart 4
Trips by US and overseas residents to Canada, by main trip purpose, second quarter 2025
Chart 5
Expenditures by US and overseas residents in Canada, by expenditure category, second quarter 2025
Enhancements
National Travel Survey (domestic and outbound tourism)
There are two new tables available for the National Travel Survey (NTS):
• 24-10-0070-01: Visits, nights and expenditures for Canadian residents travelling in Canada and abroad by geography of visit, main trip purpose and visit duration.
• 24-10-0071-01: Visits, nights and expenditures for Canadian residents travelling in Canada and abroad by geography of visit, province of trip origin and visit duration.
Estimates for visits and nights for all travellers (including individuals younger than 18 years old) are included in the new Common Output Data Repository (CODR) tables. For comparability with previously released datasets, estimates for travellers aged 18 years and older can be selected from the new CODR tables 24-10-0070-01 and 24-10-0071-01.
There are a few important conceptual differences in the new tables compared with estimates previously released in other NTS products:
• Nights and spending aboard cruise ships are excluded. This is done to ensure that all estimates in the table reflect only nights and spending that occurred within the boundaries of the geography of visit.
• Visit counts at higher geographical levels are tabulated according to the principle that only the first visit to a region on a trip is counted, rather than the sum of visits to lower levels of geography. For example, the new tables tabulate country-visits to Canada, whereas other NTS products previously tabulated visits to Canada as the sum of the province-visits.
Additional tables or table views will be added with future releases.
Visitor Travel Survey (inbound tourism)
Data on Air Exit Survey (AES) visits at the tourism region level are now available for 2023 and 2024, upon request.
Estimates for the Visitor Travel Survey are available for selected tourism regions in Table 24-10-0066-01.
Variables of interest tables
For both surveys, the variables of interest tables have been created to provide annual data on travel and demographic characteristics that are not available in other publications for the travel surveys. They are available at the following levels upon request:
• NTS: Visit statistics at the provincial, economic region, tourism region, census metropolitan area and census agglomeration levels (2018 to 2024).
• AES: Data on trips and trip activities at the Canada level (2018, 2019, 2023 and 2024), data on visits at the provincial level (2018, 2019, 2023 and 2024), and data on visits at the tourism region level (2023 and 2024).
Focus on Canada and the United States
During the second quarter of 2025, Canadian residents took 5.6 million trips that included a visit to the United States, down 21.6% from the second quarter of 2024.
US residents took 6.1 million trips to Canada from April to June 2025, down 5.6% compared with the same quarter of 2024.
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.
Recent data on international travel to Canada are available in the monthly "Travel between Canada and other countries" release.
For other tourism-related information, see the Travel and Tourism Statistics portal.
Note to readers
This consolidated quarterly release covers the following surveys:
- National Travel Survey, which collects information about the domestic and outbound travel of Canadian residents.
- Visitor Travel Survey, which collects information on inbound tourism.
Readers are encouraged to review the concepts, definitions, data sources, methods, limitations and summary of changes for these surveys, especially when making historical comparisons and examining specific regions.
Concepts
A trip can include one or more visits, with the number of visits always being equal to or greater than the number of trips.
A domestic visit is defined as a visit within Canada by a Canadian resident during a domestic or outbound trip. An outbound visit is defined as a visit outside of Canada by a Canadian resident during a domestic or outbound trip.
Data
All estimates in this release are preliminary.
All data in this release are expressed in current dollars unless otherwise noted.
The data in this release are not seasonally adjusted.
This analysis presented in The Daily includes trip, visit and night information for all travellers (including individuals younger than 18 years old).
Canada Post service disruptions
Statistics Canada will monitor the impacts of any potential Canada Post service disruption on future releases.
Next release
The National Travel Survey and Visitor Travel Survey data for the third quarter of 2025 will be released on February 24, 2026.
Products
The articles titled "More footsteps, smaller footprint: Sustainable travel" and "Canadians visiting Ontario: Shorter trips, but many of them" are available on the StatsCAN Plus page.
Episode 27 of the Eh Sayers podcast, "Canadians just aren't California Dreamin' these days," is available.
The infographic titled, "Tourism activity, 2024" is also available.
A public use microdata file for the National Travel Survey, for reference year 2023, was released on June 27, 2025 (24250001).
A public use microdata file for the Air Exit Survey component of the Visitor Travel Survey, for reference year 2023, is also available (24250002).
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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