Airports / North Dakota / BIS
Bismarck/Mandan (BIS) TSA wait times
Bismarck Municipal Airport schedules 11 departures on an average day, and pushes up to 1 of them in a single hour. The checkpoint feels that: expect roughly 5 to 15 minutes in the standard lanes at the Wednesday 11 am peak, and closer to 4 minutes at Monday 5 pm.
Security now Modelled
5min
Level since 8 am.
Standard line. It usually runs 5 to 10 minutes at this hour on a Monday.
The worst it gets at BIS is about 9 min, Wednesday at 11 am. The quietest useful hour is Monday at 5 pm, about 4 min.
Tell us your flight below and we will work out when to leave.
A typical Monday.
That 5 is the standard line
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Standard 5minthe default
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PreCheck 3minsaves 2
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CLEAR 2minsaves 3
When should you leave?
Worked from the wait actually running at this checkpoint at the hour you will be here, not a fixed buffer.
Example. For a 6:00 PM domestic flight today, leave home about 5:03 PM. That is 30 min driving, 4 min to park, about 4 min at security when you reach it around 5:37 PM, 4 min to walk to the gate and 15 min spare before boarding: 57 minutes door to gate. Change any of it below for your own flight.
Enter your flight details above to work out your exact departure time.
Leave home by
Trip timeline
Kept on this device, so it is waiting for you next time.
Which security line?
The three ways through the checkpoint at this airport, what each is running right now, and what the faster ones save you.
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Standard 5min
Open to everyone. Usually 5 to 10.
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PreCheck 3min
Saves 2 min. TSA pre-approved travellers. Usually 0 to 5.
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CLEAR 2min
Saves 3 min. Biometric check, then to the front. Usually 0 to 5.
PreCheck and CLEAR are separate programmes. PreCheck is a lighter screening you qualify for; CLEAR verifies who you are and walks you to the front of whichever line you are already entitled to use.
Another airport nearby?
Airports within driving distance of BIS, and the worst each one gets in its own busiest hour.
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Dickinson (DIK) 9min peak
49 miles away. 2 flights a day.
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Jamestown (JMS) 9min peak
49 miles away. 2 flights a day.
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Minot (MOT) 9min peak
53 miles away. 8 flights a day.
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Devils Lake (DVL) 9min peak
63 miles away. 2 flights a day.
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Aberdeen (ABR) 9min peak
72 miles away. 2 flights a day.
Airlines at BIS
Which airline you are flying decides your terminal and checkpoint. This is the share of BIS's departures each one runs, from the published schedule.
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SkyWest regional 54%
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Envoy Air regional 26%
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Delta 11%
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Allegiant 8%
Regional carriers (SkyWest, Envoy, PSA, Republic) fly these routes under the mainline brands, so a SkyWest flight shows on your ticket as Delta, United, American or Alaska.
For the terminal your gate is in, check your airline's boarding pass or the airport's official map. We do not model terminal-by-terminal waits yet, and we will not guess at them.
Is another time better?
The checkpoint is busiest around 11 am today, at about 9 min. Fill in your flight above to see where your own trip lands.
The dark bar is now.
Busiest hours at BIS
Every block is one hour of one weekday at BIS, shaded by how much of the airport's own peak load the checkpoint is carrying. This is the measured half of the page: it comes from the published flight schedule, not from an estimate.
| Day | 12a | 1a | 2a | 3a | 4a | 5a | 6a | 7a | 8a | 9a | 10a | 11a | 12p | 1p | 2p | 3p | 4p | 5p | 6p | 7p | 8p | 9p | 10p | 11p |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Tue | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Sat |
Darker means a heavier checkpoint load. Built from 1,062 scheduled departures from BIS across three months of federal on-time records.
Hour by hour, Monday
| Hour | Departures | Standard | PreCheck |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 am | 1 | 5–10 min | 3 min |
| 4 am | 1 | 5–15 min | 3 min |
| 5 am | 1 | 5–15 min | 3 min |
| 6 am | 1 | 5–10 min | 3 min |
| 7 am | 1 | 5–10 min | 3 min |
| 8 am | 1 | 5–10 min | 3 min |
| 9 am | 1 | 5–10 min | 3 min |
| 10 am | 1 | 5–10 min | 3 min |
| 11 am | 1 | 5–15 min | 3 min |
| noon | 1 | 5–15 min | 3 min |
| 1 pm | 1 | 5–10 min | 3 min |
| 3 pm | 1 | 5–10 min | 3 min |
| 4 pm | 1 | 5–10 min | 3 min |
Questions people ask about BIS
How early should I get to BIS?
For a domestic flight out of Bismarck/Mandan, plan to be inside the terminal about an hour before departure, and about an hour for an international one. That covers a 5 to 15 minute checkpoint queue at the Wednesday peak plus the walk to the gate. Outside the peak you can safely trim it; the calculator above works it out from your actual departure time.
What is the busiest time at BIS security?
Wednesday around 11 am, when 1 departures' worth of passengers are converging on the checkpoint at once. The calmest hour with real traffic is Monday at 5 pm, at roughly 4 minutes.
Is TSA PreCheck worth it at BIS?
At the Wednesday peak it turns a 5 to 15 minute queue into something closer to 3 minutes. Over a five year membership that is worth it if you fly more than about three round trips a year through an airport this busy. The trusted traveller calculator prices it against your own flying.
When does security open at BIS?
Bismarck Municipal Airport does not publish checkpoint opening hours in any national feed, so we will not invent them. What the schedule does show is that the first departures leave around 3 am, and checkpoints generally open about two hours before the first flight of the day.
Flight schedule data: U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance, May 2026, July 2025 and December 2025. Wait minutes are modelled, not measured. Here is exactly how. Page rebuilt 24 August 2026.