The Most Visited Cities in the U.S. by Tourists, According to Data

From Manhattan’s glowing billboards to Miami’s sun-soaked beaches, America’s biggest tourist magnets offer wildly different versions of the same promise: an unforgettable trip.

The latest complete city-level figures from the National Travel and Tourism Office reveal where overseas travelers went most often in 2024. New York City held a commanding lead, but Florida, California, and several major business hubs also attracted enormous international crowds.

There is one important detail behind the ranking. The data measure overseas visitors, excluding travelers from Canada and Mexico. It also uses metropolitan areas rather than strict city boundaries. Because tourists may visit several destinations during one vacation, the same traveler can appear in more than one city’s total.

The United States welcomed approximately 35.2 million overseas travelers during the year. Those visitors generated 52.8 million city visits, underscoring how common it is for international tourists to combine destinations such as New York, Washington, and Miami into a single American adventure.

Here are the 15 most visited U.S. cities among overseas tourists.

Dallas, Texas

Dallas closes the top 15 with an estimated 795,000 overseas visitors. The Texas metropolis may not market itself with beaches or movie-star glamour, but its combination of business travel, sports, shopping, and direct international flights gives it considerable global reach.

The wider Dallas–Fort Worth area is also a practical gateway to the Southwest. Some travelers arrive for conventions or corporate meetings and extend their stay to experience steakhouses, museums, and the unmistakably Texan atmosphere.

San Diego, California

San Diego offers the laid-back California vacation many tourists picture before they ever board a plane. Beaches, palm trees, waterfront neighborhoods, and mild weather make the city especially attractive to visitors who want a slower alternative to Los Angeles.

Its location near the Mexican border adds another dimension. International travelers can combine Southern California scenery, cultural attractions and coastal relaxation without dealing with the intensity of the state’s largest cities.

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Fort Lauderdale sometimes lives in Miami’s shadow, but the tourism numbers show that it has become a major destination in its own right. The city welcomed approximately 861,000 overseas travelers.

Its beaches, canals, cruise connections, and large airport make it a convenient starting point for South Florida vacations. Many travelers use Fort Lauderdale as a quieter base while remaining close to Miami, the Everglades and some of the country’s busiest cruise terminals.

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta attracted roughly 900,000 overseas visitors, supported by one of the world’s most important air-travel hubs. Yet the city is far more than a convenient place to change planes.

Its civil rights history, music legacy, film industry, and growing food scene give international travelers plenty of reasons to leave the airport. Atlanta also serves as a major business and convention destination, helping it compete with better-known leisure cities.

Houston, Texas

Houston came close to crossing the one-million mark, welcoming an estimated 956,000 overseas tourists, according to the federal ranking. The city’s appeal reflects its international population and powerful business economy. Energy, medicine, aerospace, and trade attract visitors from around the world, while Houston’s restaurants offer a culinary tour ranging from Texas barbecue to Vietnamese, Nigerian, Mexican, and Indian cuisine.

Chicago, Illinois

Chicago welcomed about 1.37 million overseas travelers, narrowly securing a place in the top 10. The city offers the architecture and cultural energy of a global capital without feeling like a copy of New York. Visitors can explore towering skyscrapers, waterfront parks, celebrated museums, and neighborhoods shaped by generations of immigration. The deep-dish pizza may get the publicity, but the dramatic Lake Michigan skyline often steals the show.

Boston, Massachusetts

Boston edged ahead of Chicago with approximately 1.39 million overseas visitors. History is the obvious attraction. The city gives travelers a direct path into America’s colonial past, but it also benefits from world-famous universities, major hospitals and a thriving technology sector. Business travelers, students and vacationers all contribute to Boston’s international pull.

Honolulu, Hawaii

Honolulu attracted almost 1.5 million overseas travelers, an impressive figure for a destination located thousands of miles from the continental United States. The city combines urban convenience with the tropical scenery many visitors spend years dreaming about.

Waikiki, volcanic landscapes, surfing culture, and warm Pacific waters create an experience that feels distinctly different from a typical American city break. Honolulu is not merely a stop on the list; for many travelers, it is the entire reason for the journey.

Washington, D.C.

The nation’s capital welcomed approximately 1.76 million overseas visitors. Washington offers something few destinations can match: many of America’s most recognizable political landmarks and museums concentrated within a relatively compact area. International tourists come to see the White House, the Capitol, and the monuments, but they also encounter lively neighborhoods, global restaurants, and a city shaped by diplomacy.

San Francisco, California

San Francisco attracted roughly 2.4 million overseas travelers, placing it just outside the top five. The Golden Gate Bridge gives the city an instantly recognizable symbol, but its appeal extends far beyond one landmark.

Steep streets, waterfront views, historic cable cars and proximity to Northern California’s wine regions help San Francisco remain a major part of international travel itineraries. Its role as a gateway to Silicon Valley also brings a steady stream of business and technology visitors.

Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas welcomed nearly 2.6 million overseas travelers, proving that its spectacle continues to translate across cultures and continents. The city has built an entire tourism economy around giving visitors more stimulation than they thought humanly possible.

Casinos remain central, but international tourists also arrive for concerts, professional sports, conventions, celebrity restaurants, and massive resorts that function like self-contained cities. Vegas understands one rule better than almost anywhere else: tourists do not have to gamble to spend money.

Orlando, Florida

Orlando drew approximately 3.93 million overseas tourists, making it America’s fourth-most-visited metropolitan destination. Its dominance rests heavily on theme parks, but describing Orlando as merely a place for children misses the scale of its appeal.

Multigenerational families travel across oceans to experience its resorts, attractions, shopping outlets, and entertainment districts. The city has transformed the family vacation into a carefully engineered global product, and millions of travelers continue buying it.

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles welcomed an estimated 4.43 million overseas visitors. Hollywood remains one of America’s strongest cultural exports, giving international travelers a sense of familiarity before they arrive. Visitors come searching for movie history, celebrity mythology, and famous streets they have already seen on screens countless times.

But Los Angeles offers several vacations at once. Beaches, museums, theme parks, luxury shopping, and diverse neighborhoods spread across the metropolitan area, rewarding travelers willing to accept that getting anywhere may take longer than expected.

Miami, Florida

Miami ranked second with approximately 5.16 million overseas tourists, giving it a comfortable lead over Los Angeles.

Its position as a bridge between the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean makes Miami one of the country’s most internationally connected cities. Visitors arrive for beaches and nightlife, but they also come for cruises, family connections, shopping, business, and major cultural events.

Miami’s atmosphere is part tropical resort, part global financial center, and part nonstop party. That combination is difficult for international travelers to resist.

New York City

No other American city came close. New York City attracted approximately 9.53 million overseas visitors, representing more than 27% of all overseas travelers to the United States. The National Travel and Tourism Office identified it as the country’s most visited city-level metropolitan destination.

The city’s advantage begins with connectivity, but its real strength lies in the density of experiences available upon arrival. Broadway, Times Square, Central Park, major museums, famous restaurants, and five distinct boroughs can fill an itinerary faster than almost any destination on Earth.

New York also attracts more than traditional vacationers. Business travelers, students, shoppers, and people visiting relatives all contribute to its enormous tourism footprint. It is not simply America’s most popular city among overseas visitors; for millions of people, it is the front door to the country.

The broader ranking reveals a clear pattern. International tourists favor destinations that combine strong flight connections with globally recognizable experiences. Coastal cities dominate, Florida places three destinations in the top 15, and New York remains in a category of its own.

America may offer thousands of places worth exploring, but when overseas travelers finally make the trip, these are the cities most likely to appear on the itinerary.