Northern New York looking north.
For months we’ve heard plenty about Canadians staying away from the United States. Now Statistics Canada’s own numbers show the direction beginning to change.
Canadian residents returned from 2.8 million trips to the United States in July 2026, UP 10.1% from July 2025. Automobile travel jumped an even stronger 12.6%. Then August continued the trend, with 2.6 million Canadian-resident return trips from the United States, UP 8.8% from a year earlier. That made August the FIFTH consecutive month of year-over-year growth.
That’s particularly interesting from our perch here in Northern New York.
Watertown is geographically positioned near the Canadian population corridor running through Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa and Montreal, so cross-border politics, trade, defense, transportation and economic integration aren’t abstract subjects for our readers. They are regional issues unfolding practically in our backyard.
And the border numbers matter here. In July, Canadian automobile trips returning from the United States reached roughly 2.17 million, compared with 1.93 million a year earlier. Same-day trips alone increased 12.9%.
There is an important reality check. Canadians still aren’t crossing at anything close to 2024 levels. August automobile return trips from the United States remained 27.4% below August 2024, while air travel remained 22.7% lower.
So this isn’t a declaration that everything has returned to normal.
It IS evidence that Canadians are increasingly coming south again.
For Northern New York businesses, border communities and anybody interested in the future relationship between Americans and Canadians, that’s a trend worth watching.
The border may be an international boundary, but economically and geographically, we’re still neighbors.
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