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TSA Checkpoint Travel Numbers: US Airport Statistics 2026
In 2025 the Transportation Security Administration screened roughly 906.7 million people at airport checkpoints, the most in its history and the second straight year above 900 million. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving it did something it had never done before: it screened more than 3.13 million travelers in a single day.
TSA publishes its checkpoint counts every day, which makes airport screening one of the fastest, most honest gauges of how much Americans are actually flying. When the numbers climb, expect fuller cabins, longer security lines, and thinner slack in the system when weather or a computer outage hits. This page tracks what those daily figures say about 2026, updated with data reported through 9 July 2026.
Key TSA Checkpoint Statistics at a Glance
- TSA screened about 906.7 million individuals in 2025, an all-time annual record and the second year running above 900 million.
Source: TSA congressional testimony, 21 January 2026 - The single busiest day in TSA history was 30 November 2025, with 3,133,924 travelers screened, the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
Source: TSA, 2 December 2025 - All 10 of TSA's busiest days ever have topped 3 million and every one has fallen since July 2024.
Source: TSA and The Points Guy, December 2025 - Eight of those top 10 days occurred in 2025 alone, with two in 2024 and none earlier.
Source: TSA and The Points Guy, December 2025 - 2024 set the prior record at 904 million individuals screened, up more than 5 percent on 2023, which had itself risen about 17 percent above 2022.
Source: TSA 2024 Year in Review, 16 January 2025; TSA 2022 and 2023 totals - Screening collapsed to about 324 million in 2020, roughly 39 percent of the pre-pandemic level, before rebuilding year by year.
Source: TSA checkpoint travel numbers, 2020 - The pre-pandemic single-day record was 2,870,764 on 1 December 2019, since beaten by every one of the current top 10.
Source: TSA, 5 December 2019 - TSA expected to screen nearly 18.7 million air travelers over the 2026 Independence Day period, 30 June to 6 July, with the peak above 3 million on Thursday 2 July.
Source: TSA press release, 25 June 2026 - The 2025-2026 winter holidays were projected at 44.3 million travelers across 17 days, 19 December to 4 January.
Source: TSA press release, 22 December 2025 - TSA screened a record 10.4 million people over Labor Day weekend 2025, including 2,971,217 on the Friday before, 29 August.
Source: TSA press release, 3 September 2025 - Thanksgiving Day itself, 27 November 2025, was the quietest travel day of the year, the calm before the Sunday rush home.
Source: The Points Guy, December 2025 - TSA PreCheck passed 20 million members, part of more than 40 million people enrolled across all DHS Trusted Traveler programs.
Source: TSA 2024 Year in Review, 16 January 2025 - PreCheck lanes are designed to keep waits under 10 minutes, versus a 20-minute target for standard lanes.
Source: TSA press release, 25 June 2026 - TSA runs more than 430 commercial airports with a workforce of over 61,000 people, its largest screening force ever.
Source: TSA by the Numbers fact sheet, 2025 - In 2024 officers screened 494 million checked bags and intercepted 6,678 firearms at checkpoints, most of them loaded.
Source: TSA 2024 Year in Review, 16 January 2025
TSA counts individuals screened at checkpoints, which includes crew and repeat travelers, so its totals run higher than airline boarding counts. Full-year 2025 figures come from TSA testimony; 2026 holiday figures are TSA projections and are flagged F below.
How Fast US Air Travel Rebuilt After the Pandemic
No industry fell harder in 2020, and few came back so completely. The annual screening totals tell the whole arc in seven numbers, from a near shutdown to two straight record years.
Source: TSA checkpoint travel numbers (annual totals compiled from daily throughput); 2025 total from TSA congressional testimony, 21 January 2026. 2020 reflects the pandemic collapse.
The scale of the fall is easy to forget. Travel dropped to roughly 324 million in 2020, then clawed back to 585 million in 2021 and 736 million in 2022. By 2023 it had passed the old 2019 mark, and both 2024 and 2025 landed near 10 percent above the pre-pandemic peak of about 824 million. Growth has now cooled from rebound to steady expansion, which is exactly what airlines plan capacity around.
The 10 Busiest Days in TSA History
Records used to fall once a year, around Thanksgiving. Now they cluster. Every day in TSA's all-time top 10 has cleared 3 million travelers, and the chart below shows how tightly they bunch near the top.
Source: TSA daily checkpoint throughput; ranking via TSA and The Points Guy, December 2025. The 1 December 2019 bar is shown as a pre-pandemic benchmark, not part of the current top 10.
The top of the table is almost entirely 2025, and almost entirely Sundays. The record day, 30 November 2025, edged past the June and July peaks by a whisker. What stands out is the compression: the gap between the busiest day ever and the tenth busiest is only a few percent, so on any big travel Sunday the whole system now runs near its ceiling.
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Why Every Record Day Is Now So Recent
A striking fact hides inside the ranking. Not one of TSA's 10 busiest days predates July 2024. The chart splits those 10 days by the year they happened.
Source: TSA all-time daily records; compiled December 2025. Counts show how many of the current top 10 days fell in each period.
Two of the top days came in 2024 and eight in 2025, with nothing before. That is what a genuine record year looks like from the checkpoint: not one freak day but a whole calendar of them. For anyone comparing airports, it also explains why staffing and wait times feel tighter now even when a specific day is not a headline record. For a fuller picture of how this load spreads across terminals, see our US airports statistics and airline passenger traffic pages.
When Americans Fly: The Seasonality of Screening
Air travel is intensely rhythmic. The busiest single days are not spread evenly but land on predictable getaway and return dates. The chart compares the peak day of four different 2025-2026 travel surges.
Source: TSA daily throughput and holiday press releases, 2025-2026. F = forecast; the 28 December 2025 figure was a TSA projection. Labor Day peak was 2,971,217 on 29 August 2025.
The pattern is consistent: the crush comes on the Sunday after a holiday, when nearly everyone flies home at once, and on the getaway Friday before a long weekend. The holiday itself is often quiet. Thanksgiving Day 2025 was in fact the slowest travel day of the year, because most people had already arrived. If you can fly on the holiday rather than the return Sunday, you are traveling against the tide.
Holiday Periods Now Move Tens of Millions in Days
Zoom out from single days to whole holiday windows and the volumes get vast. A single winter-holiday stretch now carries more travelers than some countries have people.
Source: TSA holiday travel press releases: winter 2025-26 (22 December 2025), Independence Day 2026 (25 June 2026), Labor Day 2025 (3 September 2025), winter 2024-25 (early January 2025). F = forecast. Periods span different numbers of days, shown in the labels.
The two winter windows are the clearest signal: the 2025-2026 holidays were projected at 44.3 million travelers, up from about 39 million a year earlier, though the newer window covered two extra days. The 18.7 million Independence Day projection and the record 10.4 million Labor Day weekend round out a calendar where every major holiday now sets or threatens a record. These peaks are when a strained system is most likely to buckle.
TSA PreCheck and the Trusted Traveler Boom
As volumes rose, TSA leaned on trusted-traveler programs to keep lines moving. Enrollment in PreCheck crossed a milestone, and it now sits inside a much larger pool of pre-vetted flyers.
Source: TSA 2024 Year in Review, 16 January 2025 (PreCheck past 20 million members; more than 40 million across DHS Trusted Traveler programs). Split is approximate; PreCheck is about half of the total.
PreCheck alone passed 20 million members, adding 3.3 million new enrollees and renewing 2.1 million in 2024, and it forms roughly half of the more than 40 million people enrolled across DHS Trusted Traveler programs such as Global Entry. Members keep their shoes and laptops in place and typically wait under 10 minutes, which is a large part of how TSA absorbs record crowds without gridlock. That efficiency is also a quiet capacity story: more pre-vetted travelers means more throughput from the same checkpoints. For the wider view, see our passenger airlines statistics.
Outlook: A Steady Climb, Not a Spike
The daily numbers point to another busy year rather than a blow-off top. 2026 opened at a record pace, and TSA's 18.7 million Independence Day projection, with a peak above 3 million on 2 July, signaled that the summer would extend the pattern of 2024 and 2025. Barring a shock, expect 2026 to challenge the annual record again, with the same Sunday-return crunches and the same reliance on PreCheck to keep the lines moving. For travelers, the practical takeaway is simple: on peak days the system has almost no slack, so build in buffer and know your rights when a flight goes wrong.
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References and Sources
- Transportation Security Administration. TSA checkpoint travel numbers (daily throughput data). tsa.gov/travel/passenger-volumes
- Transportation Security Administration. 2024 Year in Review: a banner year of record passenger volumes. 16 January 2025. tsa.gov
- Transportation Security Administration. TSA prepares for holiday travel season to cap record year. 22 December 2025. tsa.gov
- Transportation Security Administration. TSA prepared to screen nearly 18.7 million air travelers this Fourth of July holiday. 25 June 2026. tsa.gov
- Transportation Security Administration. TSA screens record 10.4 million individuals over Labor Day weekend. 3 September 2025. tsa.gov
- Transportation Security Administration. TSA screened a record-breaking number of Thanksgiving holiday travelers. 5 December 2019. tsa.gov
- Transportation Security Administration. Oversight of the Department of Homeland Security (congressional testimony citing 906.7 million screened in 2025). 21 January 2026. tsa.gov
- Transportation Security Administration. TSA by the Numbers fact sheet. tsa.gov
- The Points Guy. Thanksgiving 2025 was a record breaker, after all. December 2025. thepointsguy.com
- Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Average Daily Number of People Screened at TSA Checkpoints, 2019-2024.bts.gov
Methodology Note
This article draws on data published by the US Transportation Security Administration, whose checkpoint throughput counts are released daily, together with TSA press releases, congressional testimony, the TSA by the Numbers fact sheet, and the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. TSA reports individuals screened, which counts flight crew and anyone screened more than once, so its totals sit above airline enplanement counts and are best read as a demand gauge rather than a passenger census. Annual totals are the sum of TSA's published daily figures; the 2025 total of 906.7 million comes from TSA testimony dated 21 January 2026, and some earlier annual figures were originally reported on a fiscal-year basis, so year-to-year comparisons carry a small margin. Holiday-period figures dated in the future are TSA projections and are flagged F on the charts and in source lines; the 28 December 2025 peak is one such projection. The Trusted Traveler split is approximate, based on TSA's statement that PreCheck passed 20 million of more than 40 million enrolled across all DHS programs. Data reported through 9 July 2026.
Author:
Joanna Teljeur
Job/Position: Senior Editor & Content Lead
Joanna Teljeur is a senior editor and writer with 15+ years of experience in editorial leadership, journalism, and content development, specialising in consumer rights, aviation law, and public-interest reporting. Her work focuses on transforming complex regulatory and legal topics into clear, accurate, and accessible content for international audiences.
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