Duty free shops say their sales are still falling due to the decline in cross-border travel
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Owners of duty-free shops say they are bearing the brunt of the U.S. trade war, with stores at two southwestern Ontario crossings reporting business declines in the range of 30 per cent year over year.
One of those stores is located on the tunnel connecting Windsor, Ontario and Detroit. The owner says he’s worried about what happens next as he enters January, his slowest time of the year.
“If this continues, unfortunately, we will probably have to make some difficult decisions,” Abe Taktak said.
“Being a family business… we’ll try to hold on to it as long as we can before we start downsizing a little bit. But at the end of the day… you know, I’m not going to limit it. … I’m very concerned about our business over the next few months.”
Taktak said he is optimistic that business will pick up again but he understands why people don’t want to travel to the U.S.
He said he hopes people who cross the border will consider stopping at his store.
Duty free shops, including those at the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel, are reporting significant declines in sales in 2025 due to declines in cross-border traffic.
Decline in passenger vehicle traffic to America
According to Statistics Canada, return road trips to the US by Canadian residents once again declined by 30.2 per cent in October.
That number has fallen at least 30 percent year-on-year since March.
Passenger vehicle traffic from Windsor to Detroit was down about 5.9 percent between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30 of this year compared to the same period last year.
is according to Data from US Customs and Border Protection.
Passenger vehicle traffic from Point Edward (Sarnia) to Port Huron is down approximately 27 per cent for the same time period.
Tania Lee, co-owner of Blue Water Duty Free in Sarnia, Ontario, said she is seeing the same decline in sales as her Windsor Duty Free shop.
Lee, who is also president of the Frontier Duty Free Association, which advocates for Canadian land customs-free shops, said the decline in traffic is hurting duty-free shops across the country.
“We had a store in Woodstock, New Brunswick,” she said.
“And we have stores in BC that are on the brink. And we also have stores in Manitoba that have been really badly hit. They’re telling us they won’t make it through the winter, and it’s heartbreaking because you can feel their pain.”
He said stores had already survived COVID-19-related border closures and were paying down their COVID-era debt, but faced greater difficulty.
The Frontier Duty Free Association is asking the federal government for help in the form of repayable loans to stores in need, Lee said.
It is also seeking relief from red tape that shop owners say hinders competition – such as laws requiring compliance with Canadian domestic labeling requirements, even if shops are selling exclusively to the US market and must sell products that conform to US regulations.
“We’re really inspired,” Lee said of the campaign.
“We don’t have a choice. We have to get this done. There’s a lot riding on it. … We’ve committed to appearing at any meeting in Ottawa that we can get to. We’ll fly there, we’ll walk there. We’re going to … show up because our stores need it, and we have to listen. And I’m hopeful. I’m really, really hopeful.”
