At JFK, a typical hour takes 9 to 14 minutes on a US passport and 13 to 32 on any other, depending on your terminal. Public wait-time reports for the 12 months to Nov 4 2026 show a bigger gap between JFK’s terminals than between most airports. Terminal 1 is the slow one, and Terminal 5 the quick one.
Those reports come a day at a time. Here they are as a year.
The terminals that differ most
Figures are minutes: the median hour, then the 90th percentile hour. US passports and other passports are separate lines at the booth, so they have separate numbers.
| Airport and terminal | US passport | Other passport |
|---|---|---|
| JFK Terminal 1 | 14, 27 | 32, 69 |
| JFK Terminal 4 | 10, 16 | 22, 54 |
| JFK Terminal 5 | 9, 17 | 13, 31 |
| JFK Terminal 7 | 12, 23 | 22, 41 |
| JFK Terminal 8 | 10, 16 | 26, 57 |
| Orlando Terminal C | 25, 38 | 37, 61 |
| Orlando Airside 4 | 5, 9 | 14, 32 |
| Miami North | 12, 18 | 21, 43 |
| Miami South | 7, 12 | 16, 39 |
| Miami Central | 4, 10 | 16, 37 |
| LAX Tom Bradley | 12, 18 | 23, 46 |
| LAX Satellite 7 | 10, 14 | 15, 32 |
| Newark Terminal B | 12, 24 | 17, 40 |
| Newark Terminal C | 10, 17 | 15, 29 |
| Dulles International A | 8, 22 | 14, 38 |
| Atlanta Concourse E | 4, 9 | 7, 16 |
| Atlanta Concourse F | 5, 11 | 9, 23 |
| Seattle South Satellite | 15, 25 | 25, 54 |
Orlando has two halls, and a US passport takes five times as long at Terminal C. It’s the slowest big gateway on the median and Atlanta the fastest, but the Orlando figure is mostly one building.
Other gateways with one hall: Dallas/Fort Worth is 9 and 18 at the median, O’Hare 11 and 17, Boston 13 and 19. Nashville is 19 for a US passport, slower than any JFK terminal.
The hour you land changes it more
For six airports I pulled the 90 days to Nov 4 2026 and split them by the hour the flight arrived. At JFK Terminal 1, the median wait for other passports was 59 minutes for flights arriving at 11 AM and 19 at 7 PM. That’s a 40-minute gap in one hall.
Peaks don’t line up from one terminal to the next, because they follow the airline banks each building handles.
| Hall | Worst arrival hour, other passports | Median that hour |
|---|---|---|
| JFK Terminal 1 | 11 AM | 59 |
| JFK Terminal 8 | 5 AM | 42 |
| JFK Terminal 4 | 5 AM | 33 |
| Orlando Terminal C | 6 PM | 50 |
| LAX Tom Bradley | 3 PM | 36 |
| Miami North | 10 and 11 AM | 31 |
In those same 90 days, about 1 passenger in 7 at JFK Terminal 1 and about 1 in 5 at Orlando Terminal C waited more than an hour. At JFK Terminal 5, it was under 1 in 100. Those shares come from published counts of passengers by wait band. The 90-day median at JFK Terminal 1 also ran above the year’s: 36 against 32.
Which line you can change
Global Entry and Mobile Passport Control are the two levers. Mobile Passport Control is CBP’s app for US citizens, permanent residents and some visitors, and you submit your details before you reach the hall. Availability varies by airport, so check CBP’s list.
Global Entry users were 8% to 21% of passengers at most of these halls over the last 90 days. CBP suspended the program from late February to March 11 2026 during a partial shutdown, and the US passport average across airports rose only from 12.2 minutes to 13.5. That suggests a modest saving in a typical hour, 5 to 10 minutes at most by my estimate. It’s worth more at Orlando Terminal C and in the bad hours.
The best way to skip the wait is to clear it before you board. CBP lists preclearance at 16 locations, including Dublin, Shannon, Abu Dhabi and the big Canadian airports. A flight from one arrives as a domestic flight, with no booth.
What these numbers are
The reports count passengers on flights arriving in each hour, by how long they took to clear passport control. They leave out the walk to the hall, the bag belt and customs after it. They don’t say exactly where the clock starts, so if you add a walk, you may count part of it twice.
These are hourly averages. A 90th percentile here is a bad hour, not a bad passenger, and people inside that hour waited longer than the average says. Each hour counts once, so a quiet hour with one flight weighs the same as a packed one.
The data is a few days old, and it’s history, so it can’t see today’s staffing. Some halls see few flights, so their figures rest on thinner hours.
The stage sits inside a longer chain: see how long from landing to the curb. If someone’s meeting you, send them when to leave for the airport. The full tables are at Passport control waits, by terminal. If your arrival gate looks wrong on a tracker, here’s why that happens.
On a flight into the US, Skycap adds the typical wait for your terminal and your passport line to your curb time. It leaves that out when you cleared the US border before you left. How at the curb works