Maine had 107,543 fewer international visitors in July than in the same month of 2024, increasing the gap from June and continuing a slump that started in February, according to new data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Travelers crossing the border into Maine last month numbered 276,951 compared to 384,494 in July 2024, a roughly 28 percent drop. The overwhelming majority of those travelers arrived in passenger vehicles crossing the U.S. Canada border.
In June, Maine saw roughly 90,000 fewer visitors than in the same month a year earlier. While that number was less than in July, the change from the previous year in June was greater as a percentage (30 percent) than in July (28 percent).
Prior to January, when visits hit a natural seasonal low, Maine was on track to see more visitors than in any of the three previous years.
But instead of leveling out in February as the numbers have in past years before climbing toward a peak in August, visits continued to drop for three more months, hitting a low point in April.
In May and June, visits closely tracked the past two years, but at a lower level, with the gap in actual visits widening slightly and the percentage difference from last year narrowing as total visits increase toward a summer peak in August.
In July, that trend faltered with visits lagging further behind last year’s than in the previous two months.
The drop in visits from last year corresponds to a period of tense relations between the U.S. and Canada stemming from threats and punitive actions by President Donald Trump, ranging from tariffs on Canadian imports to suggesting he would annex the country to be the 51st U.S. state.
Trump has also been broadly hostile toward foreigners, seeking to enact travel bans on a number of countries the administration has labeled terrorist threats, threatening tariffs against countries that have traditionally been easy allies of the U.S., and running an increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement campaign that has featured daylight abductions and an often unclear legal process.
Maine has been hit especially hard by the drop in international visits this year. While Maine saw a 27.9 percent decrease from July 2024, the national average dropped just 5.3 percent in the same period.