Methodology

Current waits

The "wait now" figure is the wait U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) publishes for each crossing and lane type. CBP describes these as estimates made "using either a manual, line-of-sight methodology via predetermined benchmarks or an automated system." Officers update most crossings about once an hour, so a value can be up to an hour old; the label next to it ("CBP: At 4:00 pm PST") is CBP's own update time.

Typical waits

"Typical wait" is CBP's historical average for the same crossing, lane type, month, weekday and hour. CBP does not say how many years the averages cover. They describe a normal day, not today: holidays, inspections, weather and incidents can move the actual wait far from it.

Our own data

Since October 31, 2026 we record CBP's wait-time feed every 15 minutes, keeping each response unchanged. That record is what forecasts are built and tested on.

Forecasts

Forecasts with a likely range will appear only after they beat CBP's typical waits on four weeks of data they were not built on, and after the range contains the actual wait about 80% of the time. Results will be published crossing by crossing on the Accuracy page, including where forecasts did worse.