FlyerIntel Research

How Long US Customs Actually Takes

Name: How Long US Customs Actually Takes
Creator: FlyerIntel
Published: 2026-08-30T03:16:07.796Z

Two years of federal records for every major US arrival hall show that the queue you join depends on the passport you carry.

Published August 30, 2026 · Source period July 2023 – July 2026

Summary

The median passport control wait was 11 min for US citizens and 17 min for everyone else, across 435,523 hours of Customs and Border Protection records at 66 arrival terminals in 46 US airports. The gap widens sharply at the bad end: on the worst tenth of hours, citizens wait 22 min while other passengers wait 40 min, 18 min longer. JFK Terminal 1 is the slowest hall measured, exceeding half an hour in 35.7% of its operating hours.

Key findings

Non-US passengers wait 6 min longer than citizens at the median, and 18 min longer in the worst tenth of hours.
The gap is widest at JFK Terminal 8 (American): 11 min against 26 min.
JFK Terminal 1 is the slowest arrival hall, over 30 minutes in 35.7% of hours.
Among the busiest halls, ATL Concourse E is the fastest at a 6 min median.
Opening more booths does not shorten the queue: halls running 40 or more are the slowest of all.

This is not the TSA queue

Customs and Border Protection processes passengers arriving from abroad at passport control. It is a different queue, in a different hall, at a different point in the trip from the TSA checkpoint you clear on departure. It is the one that decides whether a connection after an international flight is realistic. CBP publishes it per terminal and per hour, roughly two days in arrears, which makes it useless for "how long is it right now" and unusually good for "how long is this normally".

Median wait by passport, national

US citizens · median hour11 min

All other passengers · median hour17 min

US citizens, worst 10% · 90th percentile22 min

All others, worst 10% · 90th percentile40 min

Two queues, not one

Every hall in this dataset runs what is effectively a fast lane and a slow one. Citizens and residents are eligible for automated processing and for Global Entry, which together handle about a fifth of the US-passport traffic in these records; visitors are not, and are also subject to biometric capture and a longer interview. The result is that two people walking off the same aircraft can face materially different waits, and the difference grows precisely when the hall is under pressure, which is when a tight connection is already at risk.

Where the gap between passports is widest

Where the gap between passports is widest
Airport	Terminal	US citizens	All others	Difference
JFK	Terminal 8 (American)	11 min	26 min	15 min
JFK	Terminal 1	15 min	30 min	15 min
JFK	Terminal 4 (IAT)	11 min	24 min	13 min
LAX	Tom Bradley International Terminal	14 min	27 min	13 min
MIA	Central Terminal	5 min	18 min	13 min
JFK	Terminal 7 (British)	12 min	23 min	11 min
MCO	Airside 4	5 min	15 min	10 min
SPN	Main Terminal	3 min	13 min	10 min
MCO	Terminal C	25 min	35 min	10 min
HNL	Main Overseas Terminal	8 min	17 min	9 min
GUM	Main Terminal	6 min	15 min	9 min
LAS	Terminal 3	8 min	17 min	9 min
SEA	South Satellite	15 min	24 min	9 min
MIA	North Terminal	13 min	21 min	8 min
DFW	Terminal D	10 min	17 min	7 min
IAH	IAB	12 min	19 min	7 min
MIA	South Terminal	8 min	15 min	7 min
SFO	Terminal G	11 min	18 min	7 min
ORD	Terminal 5	12 min	18 min	6 min
JFK	Terminal 5 (Jet Blue)	9 min	15 min	6 min

Median hourly wait for each queue, from the same figures published on each airport’s own profile. The difference is the gap between the two columns.

More booths do not mean shorter queues

The intuitive fix is staffing, and the data does not support it. Halls running 40 or more booths have a median wait of around 25 minutes; halls running 6 to 10 sit near 14. The booths are not the cause: CBP opens them in response to volume, and the ratio of arriving passengers to open booths stays nearly flat across the whole range. What changes is the shape of the arrival: a hall running 40 booths is absorbing several widebodies that landed within minutes of each other, and no amount of parallel processing smooths a bank that arrives all at once.

Booths open, passengers per booth, and the resulting wait

Booths open, passengers per booth, and the resulting wait
Booths open	Passengers per booth	Median wait	Hours measured
1-5	76	16 min	21,503
6-10	54	14 min	86,117
11-15	46	15 min	87,506
16-20	47	17 min	63,582
21-25	49	18 min	31,341
26-30	51	19 min	13,279
31-35	50	20 min	6,516
36-39	46	20 min	2,605
40-64	44	24 min	2,950

Hours with at least 200 arriving passengers. Passengers per booth barely moves; the wait does.

Median wait by hour of the day, all airports

0:00 · 303 passengers an hour13 min

1:00 · 239 passengers an hour11 min

2:00 · 202 passengers an hour10 min

3:00 · 203 passengers an hour11 min

4:00 · 406 passengers an hour14 min

5:00 · 524 passengers an hour16 min

6:00 · 534 passengers an hour16 min

7:00 · 474 passengers an hour16 min

8:00 · 459 passengers an hour16 min

9:00 · 467 passengers an hour17 min

10:00 · 430 passengers an hour15 min

11:00 · 423 passengers an hour14 min

12:00 · 490 passengers an hour13 min

13:00 · 604 passengers an hour14 min

14:00 · 672 passengers an hour15 min

15:00 · 658 passengers an hour14 min

16:00 · 661 passengers an hour14 min

17:00 · 668 passengers an hour13 min

18:00 · 634 passengers an hour13 min

19:00 · 633 passengers an hour13 min

20:00 · 554 passengers an hour13 min

21:00 · 419 passengers an hour13 min

22:00 · 415 passengers an hour14 min

23:00 · 360 passengers an hour14 min

Major US arrival halls ranked by worst-case wait

Major US arrival halls ranked by worst-case wait
#	Airport	City	Terminal	Typical	Busy hour	Worst recorded	Hours over 30 min
1	JFK	New York	Terminal 1	24 min	52 min	245 min	35.7%
2	MCO	Orlando	Terminal C	33 min	52 min	240 min	58.3%
3	LAX	Los Angeles	Tom Bradley International Terminal	21 min	40 min	245 min	23.3%
4	JFK	New York	Terminal 4 (IAT)	18 min	40 min	257 min	20.4%
5	JFK	New York	Terminal 8 (American)	20 min	39 min	261 min	21.0%
6	BNA	Nashville	Main	23 min	37 min	164 min	23.6%
7	DTW	Detroit	Warren C Evans Terminal	23 min	36 min	118 min	22.2%
8	JFK	New York	Terminal 7 (British)	19 min	36 min	176 min	17.8%
9	MIA	Miami	Central Terminal	14 min	35 min	215 min	13.7%
10	EWR	Newark	Terminal B	16 min	34 min	224 min	13.0%
11	LAS	Las Vegas	Terminal 3	15 min	34 min	166 min	13.3%
12	SEA	Seattle	South Satellite	19 min	34 min	226 min	15.8%
13	MIA	Miami	South Terminal	13 min	32 min	191 min	11.6%
14	SFO	San Francisco	Terminal A	17 min	32 min	225 min	12.1%
15	IAH	Houston	IAB	16 min	32 min	263 min	12.2%
16	FLL	Fort Lauderdale	Terminal 1	10 min	31 min	202 min	11.2%
17	MIA	Miami	North Terminal	17 min	31 min	247 min	11.1%
18	FLL	Fort Lauderdale	Terminal 4	16 min	31 min	229 min	10.5%
19	HNL	Honolulu	Main Overseas Terminal	15 min	30 min	192 min	9.3%
20	ORD	Chicago	Terminal 5	15 min	30 min	206 min	9.1%
21	FAT	Fresno	Main	16 min	29 min	113 min	7.8%
22	GUM	Hagåtña	Main Terminal	12 min	28 min	175 min	7.4%
23	SAN	San Diego	Main	19 min	28 min	112 min	6.3%
24	IAD	Washington	Satellite C	11 min	28 min	173 min	8.2%
25	BOS	Boston	Terminal E	16 min	28 min	212 min	7.0%
26	IAD	Washington	International A	11 min	28 min	212 min	7.7%
27	MCO	Orlando	Airside 4	12 min	27 min	163 min	6.4%
28	SFO	San Francisco	Terminal G	14 min	27 min	190 min	6.1%
29	AUS	Austin	Main	13 min	27 min	199 min	6.7%
30	SJU	San Juan	San Juan AA	13 min	26 min	194 min	4.8%
31	ONT	Ontario	International Terminal	17 min	26 min	91 min	4.4%
32	MSP	Minneapolis	Terminal 1 Lindbergh	12 min	25 min	222 min	5.5%
33	SLC	Salt Lake City	Main	16 min	25 min	113 min	3.1%
34	JFK	New York	Terminal 5 (Jet Blue)	11 min	25 min	182 min	5.2%
35	DFW	Dallas–Fort Worth	Terminal D	13 min	25 min	227 min	5.1%
36	EWR	Newark	Terminal C	13 min	25 min	187 min	5.4%
37	SPN	I Fadang, Saipan	Main Terminal	12 min	24 min	117 min	4.1%
38	OAK	Oakland	Main	11 min	24 min	111 min	5.1%
39	RDU	Raleigh–Durham	Terminal 2	11 min	23 min	165 min	2.9%
40	DTW	Detroit	McNamara Terminal	11 min	23 min	173 min	3.3%
41	SJC	San Jose	Main	11 min	23 min	134 min	3.0%
42	STL	St. Louis	Main	10 min	22 min	111 min	3.2%
43	CLT	Charlotte	Main	8 min	21 min	304 min	3.7%
44	PDX	Portland	Main	12 min	20 min	150 min	0.6%
45	TPA	Tampa	Main	9 min	20 min	161 min	2.6%
46	SMF	Sacramento	Main Terminal	11 min	19 min	114 min	1.2%
47	BWI	Baltimore	International Arrivals	9 min	19 min	136 min	0.8%
48	LAX	Los Angeles	Satellite 7	12 min	19 min	153 min	1.4%
49	MSP	Minneapolis	Terminal 2 Humphrey	10 min	19 min	103 min	1.5%
50	MDW	Chicago	Main Terminal	9 min	19 min	174 min	1.4%
51	PHL	Philadelphia	Terminal A	8 min	18 min	255 min	2.3%
52	DEN	Denver	International	10 min	18 min	188 min	1.0%
53	SAT	San Antonio	Main	10 min	18 min	193 min	0.7%
54	ATL	Atlanta	Concourse F	8 min	18 min	207 min	1.7%
55	PHX	Phoenix	Main	5 min	14 min	206 min	0.7%
56	ATL	Atlanta	Concourse E	6 min	12 min	618 min	0.5%
57	PBI	West Palm Beach	Main	0 min	7 min	63 min	0.3%

Terminals with at least 1,500 measured hours, ranked by the wait on their worst tenth of hours.

What to do with this

Two things follow. If you are connecting after an international arrival, the hall you land in matters more than the airport: terminals at the same airport differ by more than the difference between airports. And if you are not traveling on a US passport, plan against the slower of the two figures on this page rather than the headline. The published average for a hall is not the wait you will personally experience. The busiest hour nationally is 14:00; the shortest typical wait falls around 2:00.

Pages for what this report covers

Airports: New York (JFK) · Los Angeles (LAX) · Miami (MIA) · Orlando (MCO) · Honolulu (HNL) · Las Vegas (LAS) · Seattle (SEA) · Dallas–Fort Worth (DFW) · Houston (IAH) · San Francisco (SFO)

Methodology

Calculated by FlyerIntel from 435,523 hourly records published by US Customs and Border Protection covering 66 arrival terminals at 46 airports between 2024-08-28 and 2026-10-15. CBP reports, for each terminal and each hour, the average and maximum wait, the same figures split between US and non-US passport holders, the number of booths staffed, and passenger and flight counts. Medians are used throughout rather than means: a single diverted widebody puts a two-hour wait into one hour’s average and misrepresents every ordinary week around it. Hours with no arriving passengers are excluded, and a terminal appears in the ranking only with at least 1,500 measured hours.

Limitations

These are passport control waits for arriving international passengers. They are not TSA departure security waits and the two must not be compared. CBP publishes about two days in arrears, so this describes typical conditions rather than current ones. The figures measure the queue at passport control only, and exclude baggage reclaim, agricultural inspection and the walk to a connecting terminal, all of which sit between an arriving passenger and their next flight. Booth counts reflect positions staffed, not officers on duty.

Sources

CBP Airport Wait Times — US Customs and Border Protection · source
FlyerIntel analysis — FlyerIntel · source

Full FlyerIntel methodology · Report a problem with this analysis