Applications for passports are up 53% in the United States and 33% in Canada ahead of new United States' border regulations requiring all airline passengers landing in the US to carry a passport after January

23 this month.
Driver's licenses and birth certificates will no longer be accepted as proof of identity for Canadians crossing the border by air and for US citizens returning by air from Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas and the Caribbean. As a result, the US passport authorities expect to issue around 16m new passports this year.
But both US and Canadian tourism bodies are concerned that the new rules may well put off some travellers from crossing their international borders in future. The Canadian tourism industry is already suffering from a sharp 28% drop in visitors from the US – mostly because of the increase in the value of the Canadian dollar – and there are mixed views on whether this new passport regulation will contribute further to that decline.
According to the US State Department, an estimated 27% of US citizens currently have passports, while in Canada the rate is said to be 40%.