by Jen Mallia
Last updated: 3:00 PM ET, Wed August 26, 2026
Statistics Canada has released the results for its National Travel Survey and Visitor Travel Survey for the first quarter of 2026, and the numbers — assuming they are the shape of things to come for the rest of the year — look promising for anyone who depends on a robust traveller economy.
During the first quarter of 2026, Canadians took 78.7 million trips, which is 1.5 percent more than we did in the same time period last year. The vast majority of those trips were within Canada (69.1 million). Overnight domestic trips were down slightly from 2025 (-1.2 percent) but trip length was up (the average number of nights rose 3.6 percent to 2.8) and people spent an average of $471 per trip.
Canadians travelled more internationally too, if you don’t count to the U.S. From January to March, Canadians took 5.5 million trips to the U.S. which is down 10.6 percent from 2025. Most of the visits were overnight (62.5 percent). The average length of overnight stays was 7.9 and the average spend was $1,344.
Other international travel was up, with Canadians taking 4.6 million trips that included an outbound visit to an overseas country — an increase of 6.2 percent over the previous year. Spending was up by 16.7 percent to a total of $10.1 billion. According to the survey, on average, Canadian residents spent $2,210 per visit, and the average visit length was 13.3 nights.
The top three most-visited countries (other than the U.S.) in the first quarter of 2026 were Mexico (1.3 million visits), followed by the Dominican Republic (441,000) and Costa Rica (193,000). The report notes that this was the highest number of Canadian visitors recorded since at least 2018 (the year data collection started for the National Travel Survey), attributed to more direct flights being offered from several Canadian airlines.
Canadian visits to Japan (+79,000), France (+57,000) and Mexico (+51,000) were notably up in the first quarter of 2026.
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