Arrivals · who comes to Seattle
Seattle and King County welcomed 39.7 million visitors in 2025, down 0.6%, with spending steady at $8.8 billion — a plateau, not a reversal. The mix beneath is shifting: Canadian visits fell with the trade climate while international air arrivals grew 7.9%, and six FIFA World Cup matches in June 2026 are the largest event bet in the city’s history.
The 2025 visitor total is a plateau with a churn beneath. Domestic leisure held; corporate and government travel softened on federal spending cuts; Canadian visitation — historically the market’s largest international source at 1.7 million visitors and $584 million in spending — declined amid the trade climate. The one segment that grew fast was international air arrivals, up 7.9% at SEA, led by Asia-Pacific routes.
The structural read: Seattle’s visitor economy is rotating toward the Pacific and away from its northern land border — the mirror image of Vancouver’s 2025 story, with the two cities effectively swapping lanes on the same Cascadia corridor. Local visits to downtown rebounded 11% in 2025, a sign that the urban core’s recovery is being led by its own residents as much as by visitors.
June 2026 is the largest event month in Seattle’s history: six FIFA World Cup matches at Lumen Field, with Visit Seattle projecting a $929 million economic impact including $90–100 million in tax revenue and roughly 20,000 jobs. The tournament’s transit rehearsal was already run by the city’s own system — Link set a 309,000 single-day record on match day.
The TIO framing: watch the second half of 2026, not the World Cup month itself. The risk of an event this size is the displacement of ordinary summer travel; the test is whether September–December prints above trend. If it does, Seattle converts a one-month event into a re-rated destination — the same trade Sydney is running with its new terminal, and Vancouver with its cruise season.
The TIO Read: Seattle’s 2025 plateau is the healthiest flat line in the series — $8.8 billion held, jobs growing, and the only fast-growing segment is the one that matters long-term: international air. The city spent 2025 quietly rotating its visitor base toward the Pacific while the Canadian lane rested. June 2026 is the audit: six World Cup matches will print the biggest event month in local history, and the question is what remains after the tents come down. Watch September hotel occupancy — that is where a one-month event becomes a decade of re-rating.
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