Customs lines for International arrivals at San Francisco’s airport are among the nation’s longest. (Image: San Francisco International Airport)
A new analysis of Customs and Immigration waiting times for travelers arriving at U.S. airports had some bad news for Bay Area residents: San Francisco International ranks among the nation’s worst, and lines at Mineta San Jose International are getting longer instead of shorter.
The study by MileCards.com looked at Customs and Border Protection data from October 2016 to September 2017, studying the average wait times at U.S. airports handling at least 500,000 international passengers a year.
The bad news: San Francisco International posted the second-worst results in the nation, with an average waiting time of almost 22 minutes for arriving passengers to clear Customs and Immigration. Just under one-third of SFO arrivals had to wait more than 30 minutes, and the maximum average waiting time was more than 55 minutes. The worst arrival time at SFO in terms of Customs waits is between 4 and 5 a.m., the study found.
“At some airports the worst wait times are in the early morning hours, when no flights are scheduled to arrive. Instead, flights arriving late or early can leave passengers in limbo during times when customs lines aren’t planned to be staffed,” said Brian Karimzad, director of MileCards.com.
SFO’s poor performance was topped only by Orlando International, with an average waiting time of almost 24 minutes, and an average maximum wait of 52 minutes. Rounding out the top five longest waiting times were New York JFK (20.2 minutes), Miami (19.9 minutes) and Houston Bush Intercontinental (19.5 minutes).
The study found that the biggest increase was at Mineta San Jose, where Customs waiting times during the summer months jumped by 117 percent over the previous year. The average wait time at SJC topped 22 minutes, MileCards said, and one-third of arrivals had to wait more than half an hour. The airport expanded its international arrivals building earlier this year, but it has also been adding more international flights, and maybe Customs and Border Protection staffing hasn’t kept up..
By contrast, the nation’s shortest average waiting time was at Phoenix Sky Harbor, with an average duration of just 7.4 minutes to clear arrivals formalities, and an average maximum wait of 22.6 minutes. Charlotte ranked second, with an average of 8.9 minutes, followed by Minneapolis-St. Paul (10 minutes), Atlanta (11.7 minutes) and Philadelphia (12 minutes). But Atlanta — the nation’s largest airport in passenger numbers—also showed a maximum average waiting time of more than 50 minutes – about twice as long as the three airports that ranked above it.
The report noted that California’s Orange County Airport had “the biggest reduction year over year, with wait times dropping 68 percent to an average of under 8 minutes.”
Here’s a summary of the best and worst waiting times:
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With Mobile Pass I usually am through in a couple minutes (there are exceptions). At that point however I will wait for baggage and that is terrible at SFO. Of the twenty or so airports I frequent SFO is the worst for baggage – even domestically too.
I recently flew from Dublin to Orlando and was surprised to find that all Aer Lingus passengers going to the United States clear customs and immigration at DUB. The inspectors are all US ICE employees. Aer Lingus has an area with about 10 departure gates set aside for US flights. The only way to reach the gates is to go through the the customs area located on the basement level beneath the terminal. When I got off the plane in Orlando, it was just like arriving on a domestic flight. It’s too bad that other airports with a high volume of US bound passengers don’t have a similar setup. If you have to arrive 3 hours before flight time for an overseas flight, some of that time may as well be spent taking care of clearing customs.
I’m incredulous that LAX is not on the “Worst” list…
I agree that SFO can be hit or miss. Just arrived from Sydney this morning and landed at 6:15am. There were a couple of other carriers that landed at that same time and the customs lines were a mess. Thankfully got Global Entry and was in and out in 5 mins. If I hadn’t gotten Global Entry, by looking at the other line for US passports, it would have been at least 30 mins.
A recent arrival at SJC from Europe had a minimal wait. Arrived around 5 pm or so.
But SFO is all over the place – can be 5 minutes or 50, and that’s with a US passport. Who knows how long it takes with, say, A Syrian passport
Agree. For example, ATL doesn’t even have any scheduled intl arrivals between 4-5. The four big Latin American arrivals all come in around 5:30 so if one of them is more than half an hour early, I imagine there won’t be many staff ready, hence the wait time.
Response to G.R. Downtown – we don’t travel internationally frequently now we are retired but passing through Abu Dhabi (India to US) using the pre check proceedure – very fast – 4 minutes at about 1am. Just two months ago entering the US in Houston from Frankfurt 5pm – just 5 minutes in line and 30 seconds in front of the immigration officer in Houston.
You’re are correct..I’m shocked that the blogger here didn’t notice that..
I know this might not work for everyone, but fly into the US out of one of the airports that allows you to arrive before you leave. Dublin is one of them. It makes it so much easier when you can get off the plane and go about your lives recovering from jet lag. Also, it provides a great excuse if there need be one to make Dublin the last stop on your trip.
Looking at the data, it looks like these are a very small number of incidences of flights being *very* delayed and landing after 4am, at which point there’s only minimal immigration staff available to process them, thus the delays…
“The worst arrival time at SFO in terms of Customs waits is between 4 and 5 a.m., the study found.” is a little surprising, given that there are generally no international arrivals into SFO between midnight and 6am, and immigration is closed until 6am…