TSA wait times: what is published, and how busy your day is

The busiest days of 2025

TSA screened 906,735,976 people in 2025, an average of 2,484,208 a day. The quietest days were these:

Weekdays compared

Over 2025, Sunday averaged the most people screened, 2,736,967, and Tuesday the fewest, 2,163,031. Pick a year below to compare.

What the numbers can and cannot tell you

A national total says how crowded the system is that day; it does not say how long you will wait at your checkpoint, which depends on the airport, the hour, the lanes open and staffing. A day 20% busier than average at the national level can still be smooth at an airport with few early flights. Use the date tool for the general picture and MyTSA for your airport and hour.

The latest day in the data is October 25, 2026. TSA updates its numbers on weekdays; the site rereads them through a scheduled job and shows the reading date under each table.

Shorter lines through programs

PreCheck is the only program with an official wait figure. CLEAR+ sends members to the front of the ID check in its lanes at about 62 airports, but publishes no wait time of its own. On return from abroad, Global Entry members use kiosks or touchless portals instead of the passport line; CBP's Airport Wait Times site shows how long that line has been in the past. The chooser on the home page picks the program that fits your trips.

Reading the date tool

For a past date, the tool shows TSA's own count for that day and where it ranks in its year: "busier than 90% of days" means only about one day in ten saw more people. For a future date, there is no count yet, so the tool takes the same weekday 52 weeks earlier, which keeps the weekly rhythm of travel, and says so. Holidays that move from year to year, such as Thanksgiving or Easter, can fall on a different week; check the reference date the tool prints. Data run from January 1, 2025 to October 25, 2026.

Planning around the busy days

The figures point to simple habits. Sundays and the days around major holidays are the heaviest at the national level, so allow more time on those dates even with PreCheck. Early morning banks of departures at hub airports concentrate travelers into a short window, which national totals cannot show but MyTSA's historical estimate for your airport and hour can. And lanes for PreCheck members are not open at every checkpoint all day: TSA publishes the PreCheck checkpoint schedule by airport, worth a look before an early flight. If the indicator is missing from your boarding pass, the expedited lane is closed to you whatever the volume, so check it before leaving home; the Known Traveler Number page explains the usual causes.

Where these numbers come from

TSA's passenger volumes page lists, for each day, the number of people screened at its checkpoints nationwide. TSA says the numbers are updated Monday through Friday by 9 a.m., and that updates during holiday weeks may be slightly delayed. This site keeps the current and previous year, read by a scheduled job, and changes nothing in them.