SEASeattle Tacoma
How long is the TSA security line at SeaTac (SEA) right now?
At 7:27 am Pacific most SeaTac checkpoints are under 10 minutes. The longest standard line is Checkpoint 1, 20 min. Checkpoint 2 is moving at 3 min.
Wait time by checkpoint
| Checkpoint | Standard | PreCheck |
|---|---|---|
| Checkpoint 1 | 20min | no lane |
| Checkpoint 2 | 3min | no lane |
| Checkpoint 3 | 6min | no lane |
| Checkpoint 4 | 7min | no lane |
| Checkpoint 5 | 10min | no lane |
| Checkpoint 6 | 14min | no lane |
Read from news.delta.com at 21 minutes ago, next read in 1
How busy SeaTac security usually is
People screened per hour at each checkpoint, averaged over 133 days of TSA counts, 22 March to 5 September 2026. Green is that checkpoint's quiet hours, red its peak. Find your checkpoint and look along the row for green.
| Checkpoint | 4a | 6a | 7 am, now | 8a | 10a | 12p | 2p | 4p | 6p | 8p | 10p | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Checkpoint 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Checkpoint 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Checkpoint 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Checkpoint 4 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Checkpoint 5 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Checkpoint 6 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Checkpoint IAF |
Tap a cell for its count.
Quiet for this checkpointIts busiest hourclosed or no count
On the counted days the first passengers through SeaTac were screened at midnight and the last at 11 pm. Across SeaTac the busiest hour is 6 am and the counts fall away after 5 pm. Most checkpoints peak before noon; Checkpoint IAF runs the other way at 1 pm. TSA counts people, not minutes, so this shows when a checkpoint is loaded, not how long you will stand in it.
Questions people ask
How busy is SeaTac airport today?
At 7:27 am Pacific most SeaTac checkpoints are under 10 minutes. The longest standard line is Checkpoint 1, 20 min. By TSA's counts 7 am is usually one of the busiest hours at SeaTac, about 4,500 people an hour across its checkpoints against 4,600 at the 6 am peak. On a normal day SeaTac screens about 60,000 people, 13th of the 431 airports TSA counts; its largest checkpoint is Checkpoint 3.
Does PreCheck have a shorter line at SeaTac?
The SeaTac feed lists no open PreCheck lane at the moment; the sign above shows every lane it publishes.
Which SeaTac checkpoint is fastest right now?
At 7:27 am Pacific the shortest standard line is at Checkpoint 2, 3 min. The sign above lists every checkpoint and lane the airport publishes, longest and shortest alike.
How current is this number?
Delta Air Lines publishes the SeaTac wait times at news.delta.com and waittimes.io reads them every 10 minutes. The time on the sign is the last read, in Pacific time. A number older than 30 minutes says so, and a feed silent for 2 hours shows when it last published instead of a number. Nothing here is predicted.
When is TSA security at SeaTac quietest?
Over the 133 counted days, 22 March to 5 September 2026, SeaTac checkpoints screened the most people at 6 am. The counts fall away after 5 pm. Each row of the map above is one checkpoint scaled to its own peak, so its green hours are the ones to aim for. Counts say when a checkpoint is loaded, not how long the line is.
What time does TSA open at SeaTac?
Over the 133 counted days, 22 March to 5 September 2026, the first passengers through SeaTac were screened at midnight and the last at 11 pm. Checkpoint 4 opens first and runs latest. These are the hours TSA counted people, not SeaTac's published checkpoint hours. Check the airport's own page before an early flight.
Other airports
Every covered airport, ranked by its line right now, is on the national page, with the airports that publish no live number under it. The busiest airports by people screened lists every code TSA counts.
ATL, BOS, BWI, CLE, CLT, DAL, DCA, DFW, DTW, EWR, IAH, JFK, LGA, MCO, MIA, MSP, PHL, PHX, PIT, SLC
Where the numbers come from
- Wait times
- Published by Delta Air Lines at news.delta.com. We read the page every 10 minutes and show the time of the last read. A reading older than 30 minutes is marked as such.
- Usual busyness
- TSA's own hourly passenger counts per checkpoint, published weekly in its FOIA reading room. This page uses 133 days of counts, 22 March to 5 September 2026. Public domain.
- Who reads them
- Arcane Digital, which runs waittimes.io, reads every feed every 10 minutes with its own collector and stores the time of each read. The day's reads are checked every night for a feed that has stopped or thinned, and one person reads that report the next morning. Nobody types a number in.
- What we never do
- Predict a wait in minutes, or show an old number as if it were current.
- Every feed
- How each one is read, the TSA counts and who to write to: the sources page.