Canada Day trips to Detroit down; July 4 trips steady, tunnel CEO says

Tunnel traffic from Windsor to Detroit was down around eight per cent on Canada Day compared with Canada Day 2024, according to the tunnel's CEO.

But nearly as many Americans came to Canada this year as last year.

Traffic to and from the U.S., over the July 4 holiday period, meanwhile, dropped between just one and 1.5 per cent in each direction.

"Obviously, politics aside, the relationships between Windsor, Detroit and the United States go back multiple generations," Tal Czudner said. 

"Those family, those friends with relationships … certainly affect that data."

Canadian travel across the U.S. border has fallen sharply since President Donald Trump took office in January and launched a trade war against the country, while also threatening Canada with annexation. 

Trips to the U.S. down across Canada

In May 2025, the number of return trips to the U.S. by Canadian residents was down more than 38 per cent from the same month in 2024, according to Statistics Canada.

Passenger vehicle traffic to the U.S. through the Windsor-Detroit tunnel and across the Ambassador Bridge fell 9.8 per cent from 316,000 in May of 2024 to 285,000 in May of 2025, according to numbers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

U.S.-bound passenger traffic across the Bluewater Bridge in Sarnia and on the Walpole Algonac Ferry dropped nearly 31 per cent from 98,800 in 2024 to 68,300 in 2025 in the same time period.

The precise number of vehicles travelling through the tunnel from Windsor to Detroit fell from 5261 on Canada Day 2024 to 4802 on Canada Day 2025.

Traffic from Detroit to Windsor, meanwhile, dropped by less than 100 vehicles, from 5359 to 5289.

Traffic from Windsor to Detroit between July 3 and July 5 – the time frame typically used to measure Independence Day holiday traffic – was down from 13,347 in 2024 to 13,170 in 2025.

Traffic from Detroit to Windsor over the July 4 holiday period fell from 14,401 to 14,167.

The tunnel partnered with a team of MBA students at the University of Windsor in June to launch a campaign aimed at drawing more Americans to Windsor.

Approximately halfway through, the 40-40 campaign is outperforming expectations, Czudner said. 

"We've actually had over 2,000 people already signed up for the program, for the digital passport," he said.

40-40 campaign response 'higher than I expected'

"And that honestly is a number much higher than I expected."

The campaign invites people to visit local businesses and attractions and gives them the opportunity to get discounts and win prizes.

It's open to both Americans and Canadians, and Czudner said he doesn't know the nationalities of all of the participants, but he said he's heard anecdotal reports of increased interest from businesses.

"Cafe March 21 … are seeing a lot of people that they have never seen before. And coffee shops are known for kind of consistent business," he said.

"To me, that's great. Listen, I think people in Windsor-Essex need to be proud of what we have. And we need to stick our chest out and say, 'There's a whole bunch of cool things to do here.'"