Canadian Nexus applications plummet amid tension with U.S.

Canadian Nexus applications dropped by half last year. The latest number showing displeasure with the U.S. could be a sign of things to come.

The number of Canadian Nexus applications was cut in half in 2025: yet another sign Canucks are turning away from U.S. travel.

Data from the Canada Border Services Agency shows a 50.5 per cent drop year-over-year.

In 2024, 695,533 Canadians applied for the pass.

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Last year, that number dipped to 344,257.

It’s a sharp decline following three straight years of increases.

“Our federal government is out there trying to find alternatives for trade, and we are doing the exact same in terms of our travel partners,” Mount Royal University professor Joe Pavelka said.

“Travel is hugely substitutable, so for every great destination there is in the U.S., we can find something that is very close [to that experience] outside of the U.S.”

The Nexus trusted-traveller program allows successful applicants to skip main security lines at border crossings and airports after national background checks and interviews.

‘Thought about going’

Date suggests slowing travel demand can be linked to the re-election of U.S. President Donald Trump and the trade war he started.

Recent Abacus Data figures show among those Canadians who have not travelled south in the past year, 34 per cent “thought about going, but ultimately decided against it because of their feelings about Trump or about how the U.S. is treating Canada.”

Abacus says that works out to roughly 23 per cent of Canadian adults overall.

“When we travel, we want to experience the full value of that trip,” Pavelka told CTV News. “A part of that is not feeling guilty about our purchase, so we want to know where we are going, we are welcome.”

The application fees for Nexus also increased in 2024.

The news comes just one week after three downtown Las Vegas hotels began accepting the Canadian dollar at par with the American dollar.

It’s the latest incentive from a struggling industry.

Data from the Harry Reid International Airport shows 10 straight months of declines in Las Vegas — with the biggest culprit being flights out of Canada.

The country typically makes up the city’s largest international market by a wide margin.

“Canadians are still traveling, they’re just not travelling to the south,” Travel Consultant Onanta Forbes said. “It’s opening up the world for a lot of different people.”

“I think it’s the uncertainty, the safety. Just not knowing. It’s not an easy travel decision to go (to the U.S. anymore).”