North American visitors to Ireland eased in September but their spending kept climbing

Fewer Americans and Canadians wrapped up a trip to Ireland in September than a year earlier, yet North America still accounted for almost 40 percent of everything overseas visitors spent in the country that month. The dip lands as Tourism Ireland flags softening demand from its most lucrative market heading into winter.

Some 135,600 residents of the United States completed a visit to Ireland in September 2026, down from 149,600 in the same month last year, according to the Central Statistics Office. Canadian numbers slipped to 25,200 from 29,400. Taken together, North American arrivals were down 10 percent year on year and made up 27 percent of all overseas visitors for the month.

The spending tells a different story. Visitors from North America parted with €234 million in September, which is 39 percent of the €595 million spent by all overseas visitors, far ahead of Continental Europe on €179 million and Great Britain on €126 million. Americans and Canadians also stayed longer, averaging eight nights compared with 7.7 nights a year earlier, and they racked up almost 1.28 million bednights across the island.

One reason last September looks so strong by comparison is the NFL. Croke Park hosted the first regular-season NFL game ever played in Ireland on September 28, 2025, when the Pittsburgh Steelers met the Minnesota Vikings in front of a crowd of around 76,000, drawing thousands of American fans across the Atlantic for the weekend.

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A strong year overall

Step back from the single month, and the picture brightens considerably. Ireland welcomed close to 5.3 million overseas visitors between January and September 2026, up 9 percent on the same nine months of 2025, and those travelers spent €4.6 billion, an increase of 11 percent.

American residents alone accounted for 1,082,100 of those trips, making the United States comfortably Ireland's largest source market outside Great Britain. Spending from North America is up 8 percent so far this year, behind the 17 percent jump from Mainland Europe and the 11 percent rise from Britain, but still ahead of the 3 percent growth from the rest of the world.

The softer September showing was not confined to North America. Overall visitor numbers for the month came to 590,700, a decrease of 2 percent on September 2025, with arrivals from Great Britain down 7 percent while Continental Europe rose 8 percent. Writing in the CSO release, Edward Duffy, Statistician in the Tourism and Travel Division, confirmed that numbers from North America were down 10 percent, with the leading reason for travel to Ireland being holidays, leisure, and recreation at 48 percent of all trips.

Why the slowdown, and what happens next

Tourism Ireland points to evidence of a wider cooling in outbound travel from the United States, drawing on data published by the US trade department about traveling American citizens. The agency argues that Ireland continues to punch above its weight against rival destinations but is not immune to the trend.

Alice Mansergh, Chief Executive of Tourism Ireland, acknowledged the shift in the agency's response to the figures, saying "there was some softening in September from North America" alongside headwinds from conflict in the Middle East, where jet fuel pricing is feeding into air fares, connectivity and household budgets. She added that consumer research still shows 66 percent of potential overseas visitors treating holiday spending as worth it, leaving room to win trips before the end of the year.

The agency is leaning hard on American audiences this autumn. NBC's TODAY show, the most-watched morning program in the United States, broadcast from locations around the island earlier in October. Tourism Ireland's Home of Halloween campaign has also returned, and a new travelogue called Samhain, The Birth of Halloween, fronted by Wexford tenor Michael Londra, is airing stateside on PBS and Create TV. Similar co-operative marketing with booking platforms generated €50 million in extra inbound bookings last year.

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