Guide · Canada and United States

How border wait times are reported: what CBP and CBSA publish and what the values mean

General information, not official or legal advice. Customs, immigration and border rules change and every situation is different. Check the linked official sources and the agency’s current page before you travel. This site is not affiliated with CBP, the CBSA, DHS or any government.

Steps

1. Read the figure as the wait to reach the primary inspection booth, not total time to cross.^[1]
2. Check the update time shown for the port and lane you will use; do not assume a whole file is current.^[2][3]
3. Separate traffic on approach roads from the border queue; the CBSA says its table excludes road delays and links bridge authority traffic pages.^[2]
4. Note the status words the feeds show ("Closed" or "Lanes Closed", "Not Applicable" or "N/A", "Update Pending"); neither agency defines them on the pages we read.^[4][5]
5. Treat any figure as an estimate; the CBSA lists seizures, events, holidays and nearby construction among the reasons waits can be longer than usual.^[6]

What CBP publishes

CBP's Advisories and Wait Times page directs travelers to Border Wait Times, described as estimated wait times for northern and southern border crossings.^[8] The data are available as JSON, XML and per-port RSS. The RSS channel description states the figures are estimated wait times for reaching the primary inspection booth, "the first point of contact with CBP when crossing the Canada/U.S. and Mexico/U.S. land borders," and that each border location updates its estimates hourly.^[1] The feed covers entry into the United States only.^[3]

Each port entry carries the hours, a port status, and three blocks (passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, pedestrians). Each block has a maximum lane count and lane groups: standard, NEXUS/SENTRI, Ready and FAST as applicable; each group carries an update time, an operational status, delay minutes and lanes open.^[3][5] Some entries also carry a construction or Ready-lane notice; for example, at read time four entries (Buffalo/Niagara Falls and Detroit, two each) noted a Ready Lane available only at certain weekday hours.^[3]

What the CBP values mean, as observed

CBP does not publish a definitions page for the feed that we could find. The following are values observed in the feed at read time (2026-10-20) and should be read as observations, not definitions. Across all lane groups in the JSON feed the status text took these values: "no delay" and "delay" (each with delay minutes filled in), and "N/A", "Lanes Closed" and "Update Pending" (each with delay minutes blank).^[3][5] "Update Pending" was common at read time (105 lane groups in the JSON), so statuses change through the day. In the XML, each port also has an automation type for commercial, passenger and pedestrian measurement with values Manual, Bluetooth or RFID; for passenger vehicles 82 ports were Manual and 3 Bluetooth, for commercial 73 Manual, 2 Bluetooth and 10 RFID, and for pedestrians all 85 Manual. CBP does not explain these labels in the pages read.^[5] The XML spells the pedestrian tag "pedestrain_automation_type".^[5]

What the CBSA publishes

The CBSA wait times page says to plan ahead by checking pre-border traffic and current estimated wait times at 30 of Canada's busiest land crossings. It lists traffic pages for the Ambassador Bridge, Gordie Howe International Bridge, Peace Bridge, Rainbow/Whirlpool Rapids/Queenston-Lewiston bridges and the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, and states: "Estimated wait times can vary due to many factors like major events and holiday visitors and important enforcement actions such as drug or firearm seizures." It says to refresh the page for the latest figures and that the figures do not include delays on roads leading to a port of entry.^[2] A separate video transcript lists drug or firearm seizures, heavy traffic from events, holidays or weekend visitors, and nearby construction as reasons for longer waits.^[6] The page also carried a notice that Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle was under redevelopment, with delays expected until winter 2027.^[2]

Each row has a Commercial flow and Travellers flow value, plus an updated timestamp with time zone. Values in the CSV at read time included "No Delay", "N minutes" (for example "5 minutes"), "Not Applicable" and "Closed"; the file is live, so the mix changes through the day. In the JSON file the status text is accompanied by a numeric delay: 0 with "No Delay", the minutes with a minutes status, and negative numbers (-4 with "Closed", -5 with "Not Applicable") at read time, which look like sentinel codes and are not documented.^[4][9] The JSON timestamp carried only a time of day (for example "18:15 ADT"), while the CSV carried date and time; one row, St. Stephen (Ferry Point Bridge), showed an update from 2026-10-16, four days before the read date, so a fresh file can contain an old row.^[4][9]

The CBSA service standard is not a forecast

The CBSA's service standards say that, for highway travellers, wait times reaching the primary inspection booth will aim to be 10 minutes on weekdays (Monday to Thursday) and 20 minutes on weekends (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and holidays from September to June, and 20 minutes seven days a week in July and August, with a target of meeting the standard 95% of the time. For NEXUS highway lanes the figures are 5 and 10 minutes, and 10 minutes in July and August. For fiscal year 2025 to 2026 the CBSA reported meeting the highway standard 96.9% of the time over 25,126,202 travellers and the NEXUS standard 98.2% over 2,769,532.^[7] The page says the CBSA aims to meet targets "under normal day-to-day conditions" and lists factors such as border security concerns that can affect it.^[7] These are targets and past performance, not a prediction for a particular day.

What the feeds cannot tell you

Neither agency publishes, on the pages we read, a method describing exactly how each estimate is calculated or how reliable it is; CBP's only description is that it is an estimate updated hourly by each location. The "automation type" field suggests different collection methods but is not explained.^[1][5] CBP's feed is US-bound only and the CBSA's is Canada-bound only, so a crossing needs both feeds for both directions.^[3][2] CBSA names crossings differently from CBP (for example the CBSA lists "Douglas" where the CBP feed lists "Blaine - Peace Arch"), so matching them may require a lookup table.^[4][3]

Hours and closures

Check the official hours: the CBSA directs travellers to its Directory of Offices and Services for port hours,^[2] and CBP's feed carries an "hours" text for each port, such as "24 hrs/day" or "8 am-Midnight". Hours can change.^[3]

About this guide

Officers decide at the border; this is general information, not official guidance. travel.tnaado.ca is not affiliated with CBP, CBSA, DHS or the Government of Canada.