Ron DeSantis says that Canadian “snowbirds” are still coming to Florida in big enough numbers to facilitate a proposed reduction or elimination of property taxes.
Although the numbers appear to be in decline year over year when comparing the most recent completed quarter to its 2024 equivalent,
“They said that the Canadians were going to stop coming to Florida. And I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t think that’s true, because who would want to be in Canada in the winter or spring when you could be in Florida? Like, if you can get here, you want to get here.’ And so we have the numbers,” DeSantis said during the 2025 Florida Governor’s Conference on Tourism on Wednesday.
According to VISIT FLORIDA, 640,000 Canadians came to the state during the second quarter of 2025. That compares to 739,000 during the same period last year.
Overseas visitation overall is up, however, from 2 million in the second quarter of 2024 to 2.3 million in the second quarter of 2025, with people from other countries making up the Canadian shortfall and then some.
“We had a record-breaking number of 34.4 million visitors to the state of Florida. And that includes 311.5 million American visitors, 2.3 million overseas visitors, and 640,000 Canadian visitors, and I knew that they would come, and so we continue to attract people, to do that, and I think that this is part of the reason why we’re even having a discussion about giving people generationally significant property tax relief,” DeSantis said.
He has argued for some months that Canadians specifically should shoulder the burden for Florida’s governmental costs.
“I want Canadian tourists and Brazilian tourists subsidizing the state and making it so Florida residents pay less taxes. I don’t want to give Canadians a tax cut,” DeSantis said in March of this year.
Ironically, VISIT FLORIDA CEO Bryan Griffin said this month that Brazilian tourism is up, a key driver of the increased international numbers beyond Canada. Tensions have escalated between the U.S. and Canada since the 2024 Presidential Election.
Post Views: 0