Q3 2026 results Main Street Economy Index (MSE 100)

Three Components of the Main Street Economy Index

• Heating up – the crowds come out when the weather improves and festival season is in full-swing – visitation to main streets was up 1.2% in Q3 over Q2 and up 4.4% year-over-year.
• More people do not always equal more spending – spending was flat year-over-year despite a significant rise in visitation.
• The financial health of main street businesses remains poor with a third of businesses at high risk of closing

Canada, all 100 main streets.

Part one

How many people are visiting main streets?

It all starts with human activity – vibrancy is the foundation of successful main streets.

• Warm and fuzzies – visits to main streets peaked in July before sliding into negative territory in September
• Coin toss – 43 of the 100 main streets saw increased Q3 visitation over the previous year while 45 experienced a decline and 11 showed little change
• Maritime primetime – main streets on the east coast had the best quarter while Ontario and the North were below the national average
• Bright lights, big city – the main streets in the largest cities experienced the largest summertime surge while the main streets in mid-sized cities struggled to attract visitors
• Summertime is fun time – main street activity on evenings and weekend is typically at its pinnacle in the summer but there was a sharp decline in September especially in the evenings

Part two

How much money is being spent on main streets?

Visits create the opportunity – card spending shows whether traffic is being converting into economic activity.

• Sliding into fall – spending on main streets peaked in July before ramping down in August and September
• The east is not the least – main streets on the east coast experienced significantly higher spending growth than other regions of the country
• Small but mighty – spending growth on main streets in smaller communities outpaced main streets in mid-sized and larger cities
• Patios paying off – spending growth at restaurants on main streets exceeded growth at retail and service sector businesses
• Welcome to main street Canada – spending by international visitors on main streets surged in Q3

Part three

How healthy are the businesses on main streets?

Spending is what keeps a business going. D&B scores two kinds of risk: failure risk, the chance a business closes or becomes insolvent in the next 12 months, and delinquency risk, how reliably it pays its bills, including whether payments run seriously overdue. The index averages the two into one score per business: 140 for D&B's lowest-risk class down to 60 for its highest, so above 100 means lower risk than the middle class.

• Feeling the pain – main street businesses continue to experience financial strain with over a third at high risk of bankruptcy in the coming 12 months and over half falling behind on payments
• Summertime relief – increased visits and spending helped main street businesses improve their fiscal position over the quarter
• Safety in services – restaurants and retail report higher risk scores with services providing more stability
• The West is the best – main street business in the prairies and British Columbia are in a stronger fiscal position than their peers in other regions
• If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere – main streets business in the largest cities, where costs are often highest, are under the most financial strain

Regional breakdown

How are main streets doing across the country?

The national figure averages 100 main streets in every region and of every size. Broken out by region, the range comes back. Each region's MSE 100 for Q3 2026 is printed on the map, with an arrow for its direction since Q2 2026.

Recent insights

From the editorial team

Reserved for written commentary on what moved and why — not live yet.