Canada does not publish a national foot traffic index, so the state of main street has to be read from the numbers that exist: Statistics Canada's monthly sales, the restaurant associations' surveys, the card processors' holiday data and, for a comparison, the American location panels. Read together, they say the same thing: the money is still spent in person, and the businesses taking it have less room for error than at any point in the decade.
In short
- Retail sales were $73.7 billion in May 2026, up 1.0%, with e-commerce at 6.8% of the total (Statistics Canada).
- Restaurants sold $8.8 billion in February 2026, with full-service up 1.4% on the month and menu prices 7.8% higher than a year earlier (Statistics Canada).
- 44% of restaurants were at a loss or breaking even, and 1,500 to 2,500 are expected to close on a net basis this year.
- In the United States, retail visits were up 0.3% and dining visits down 2.4% in August 2026 (Placer.ai).
Retail: still mostly in person
Statistics Canada's retail trade release for May 2026, published July 23, put sales at $73.7 billion, up 1.0% on the month, with core retail sales (excluding gasoline stations and motor vehicle dealers) up 0.9%. Retail e-commerce sales fell 1.5% to $5.0 billion, "accounting for 6.8% of total retail trade, compared with 7.0% in April". The remaining 93.2% of retail trade ran through channels other than online stores, most of it across a counter.
Shoppers say they intend to keep it that way. The Retail Council of Canada's 2025 holiday survey of 2,505 adults found 86% planning to shop close to home and 59% planning to browse in store for inspiration, with 40% describing themselves as more impulsive during the holidays.
Restaurants: more dollars, fewer plates
Food services and drinking places sold $8.8 billion in February 2026, up 0.6% on the month, with the largest gain at full-service restaurants (+1.4%) and the largest dollar increase in Ontario (+1.2%). Prices for food purchased from restaurants were up 7.8% from a year earlier. In January, full-service restaurant sales were 7.7% higher than a year before, which at that rate of menu inflation means roughly flat volumes.
The operators' own surveys explain the gap between the top line and the bottom. Restaurants Canada found 44% of restaurants at a loss or breaking even in Q4 2025, 60% with worse profitability than expected, 46% expecting worse in 2026, and real sales forecast to fall 1.1% this year, with food costs a top concern for 88% and labour for 89%. Dalhousie's Agri-Food Analytics Lab cut its forecast of net closures from 4,000 to 1,500 to 2,500 by August, with 579 tracked in the first half and food-service insolvencies up about 7.5%, as Retail Insider reported.
Yet 82% of the 600 full-service operators TouchBistro surveyed in October 2025 called themselves optimistic. 29% named food and inventory costs their single biggest strain, 79% said tariffs had made inventory harder, and the ones who added online ordering saw sales rise an average of 18%.
The American comparison
Canada has no equivalent of Placer.ai's device panel, so its US index is the nearest read on physical visits. For August 2026 it reported brick-and-mortar retail visits up 0.3% year over year, easing from 1.7% in July, and dining visits down 2.4%, with "visits fell in nearly every state". Open-air shopping centres led at +6.6%, indoor malls gained 5.0%, and outlet malls fell 2.7%. The index notes gas prices above $4 a gallon all month and food-away-from-home inflation at 3.4% against 2.2% for groceries, "a gap that continues to favor eating at home". The panel covers "tens of millions of devices" in the United States only; the direction, not the decimal, is what transfers north.
Seasonality: two peaks, not one
Moneris data gives the shape of the Canadian year. For the 2025 holidays, Black Friday had the highest transaction volume between November 1 and December 31, with week-over-week volumes up 25% and the average transaction up 14%, even as national volume fell 4% year over year. Then came the second peak: December 23 reached 95% of Black Friday's volume and December 22 reached 94%, while Boxing Day took less than half, continuing a downward trend, per Retail Insider's summary. The season closed with total spend down 1% and transactions up 1%: more trips, smaller baskets.
What does it mean for measurement?
Nine in ten retail dollars and the whole of a restaurant's revenue are earned in person, by businesses at break-even, in a year when visits are flat. The ad platforms cannot count those visits for a single location: Google models them for accounts that pass volume thresholds, and Meta retired the objective. The count has to be built at the door, and the statistics page on offline attribution and the seven methods compared set out how. On Onlure, local businesses book local creators for a campaign and see the walk-ins each creator sends; the brands page explains how a campaign is set up.
Frequently asked questions
How much of Canadian retail is online?
Retail e-commerce was 6.8% of total retail trade in May 2026, down from 7.0% in April, according to Statistics Canada. The other 93.2% was sold through channels other than online stores.
Is restaurant traffic up or down in Canada in 2026?
Sales are up in dollars and roughly flat in volume: full-service restaurant sales rose 7.7% year over year in January 2026 while restaurant prices rose 7.8%. Restaurants Canada forecasts real sales down 1.1% for the year, and the US dining index fell 2.4% in August.
When is the busiest shopping day in Canada?
Black Friday, by Moneris transaction volume, with December 23 and 22 close behind at 95% and 94% of Black Friday's volume in 2025. Boxing Day took less than half.
