Foreign tourism to the United States fell by four million visitors in 2025 compared to 2024, with total foreign visitor spending down more than $8 billion year over year, according to industry data reported by CNN on May 25, 2026 and surfaced in a People magazine report. The drop is the first real year-over-year decline in U.S. inbound tourism since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The context is unusual. International travel globally grew by 80 million people in 2025; the United States is the outlier. The U.S. decline is also larger in absolute terms than the drop during the 2008 global recession.
The documented causes attributed to Trump-administration decisions: the U.S.-Canada trade war reduced Canadian visits to the United States by 17%, with Las Vegas alone seeing the largest drop on the U.S. side (-7.5% in overall tourism). The administration's posture toward Europe and its hostile public rhetoric have been cited by travelers in industry surveys. A proposed visa-integrity fee and a Trump-administration proposal to collect five years of social-media history from certain visa applicants have not yet been implemented but were reported widely enough to deter travel; Brand USA launched a campaign specifically to clarify that those policies were not yet in force.
The drop sits alongside the broader cost-of-living and economic data (see April PCE Inflation Hit a Three-Year High of 3.8%; Core PCE Posted Its Biggest Annual Jump Since November 2023, Driven by Trump's Tariffs and the Iran-War Oil Shock, Consumer Sentiment Hits the Lowest Level in the 74-Year History of the Michigan Survey, Worse Than the Great Recession or Biden's Worst). It is the international counterpart: foreign travelers are deciding not to visit the United States, and the dollars they would have spent are not flowing into U.S. hotels, restaurants, and retail.