What are international visitor arrival numbers to the U.S. in 2024 and 2025?

1. What the 2024 headline numbers actually say — recovery but not full return

Official and industry compilations converge on a 2024 total near 72.39 million international visitors, described as a 9.1% increase over 2023 and about 91% of 2019 volumes, signaling a strong recovery but short of pre‑pandemic peak levels ^{[1] [5]}. These sources also identify regional patterns: Western Europe supplied the largest absolute visitor volume while Asia posted the largest percentage rebound at +21.6%, indicating the recovery was uneven and driven by certain long‑haul markets recovering faster than others ^[1]. The aggregate 2024 total is thus robust enough to mark meaningful normalization for U.S. inbound travel, but still shy of complete restoration and sensitive to shifts in particular source markets.

2. Early 2025 snapshots paint a mixed, provisional picture

Preliminary monthly tallies for early 2025 show around 10.25 million arrivals for January–February and a January air‑passenger arrival figure of 4.8 million non‑U.S. citizen air passengers, up slightly from January 2024, with overseas arrivals at roughly 2.5 million in January—about 87% of January 2019 levels ^{[2] [6]}. These short‑run measures are lumpy: month‑to‑month growth can mask seasonal and regional swings, and the datasets are frequently labeled preliminary, meaning later revisions are common. The early months indicate partial continuation of the recovery, but they are insufficient by themselves to confirm full‑year 2025 trajectories without accounting for later seasonal demand and border‑specific dynamics.

3. Forecasts diverge: some see growth, others project declines

Industry forecasts and association projections present contradictory expectations for 2025. One forecast projects 77.1 million visitors in 2025 (+6.5%), anticipating continued recovery beyond 2024 ^{[7] [8]}. By contrast, a tourism economics analysis revised its outlook to expect an 8.2% decline in overall international arrivals for 2025, citing year‑to‑date drops in overseas and Canadian inbound travel that more than offset Mexican growth ^[3]. The U.S. Travel Association’s published forecast also lists 72.4 million for 2024 and 67.9 million for 2025, implying a decline year‑over‑year in one widely cited projection ^[4]. These divergences reflect different modeling assumptions about currency, airfare, business travel recovery, and border policies.

4. Regional winners and losers are driving the headline uncertainty

Discrepancies stem from regional performance: sources report Canadian arrivals down sharply year‑to‑date (‑25.2%) in some datasets while Mexican visitation shows strong growth (+13.9%), producing offsetting effects on aggregate totals ^[3]. Europe and parts of Asia showed solid rebounds in 2024, but ongoing softness in overseas markets in 2025 according to some trackers is a key factor in pessimistic forecasts ^{[1] [3]}. The net U.S. outcome for 2025 is therefore highly sensitive to whether declines from Canada and some overseas markets persist or whether other markets expand enough to compensate, highlighting the asymmetric regional drivers behind headline swings.

5. Why you should treat 2025 numbers as provisional and watch methodology

All presented 2025 figures are either preliminary or forecasted; sources explicitly note revisions and methodological differences—monthly provisional arrival counts versus model‑based annual forecasts—making direct comparisons hazardous ^{[2] [8]}. Some organizations emphasize current year‑to‑date drops and adjust down forecasts accordingly, while others extrapolate continued recovery from recent momentum. The resulting policy and commercial implications—on tourism revenue, hotel occupancy and marketing—depend on which trajectory materializes, so stakeholders should track updated monthly arrivals, finalized annual tallies, and revised forecasts to reconcile provisional data with end‑of‑year totals ^{[3] [4]}.