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Airports / Colorado / DEN

Denver (DEN) TSA wait times

Denver International Airport schedules 891 departures on an average day, and pushes up to 67 of them in a single hour. The checkpoint feels that: expect roughly 25 to 50 minutes in the standard lanes at the Thursday 10 am peak, and closer to 7 minutes at Friday 9 pm.

Security now Measured

35min

Checked 19:24 UTC, live from Fruition.

Down 8 min since 7 am.

Standard line. It usually runs 15 to 30 minutes at this hour on a Monday.

The worst it gets at DEN is about 34 min, Thursday at 10 am. The quietest useful hour is Friday at 9 pm, about 7 min.

Tell us your flight below and we will work out when to leave.

A typical Monday.

That 35 is the standard line

  • Standard 35min
    the default
  • PreCheck 12min
    saves 23
  • CLEAR 9min
    saves 26

What each line is

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 4:11 PM. That is 30 min driving, 18 min to park, about 31 min at security when you reach it around 4:59 PM, 15 min to walk to the gate and 15 min spare before boarding: 109 minutes door to gate. Change any of it below for your own flight.

Door to terminal kerb, before traffic. We add the traffic for the hour you would actually be driving.

Enter your flight details above to work out your exact departure 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.

  • Standard 35min

    Open to everyone. Usually 25 to 50.

  • PreCheck 12min

    Saves 23 min. TSA pre-approved travellers. Usually 10 to 20.

  • CLEAR 9min

    Saves 26 min. Biometric check, then to the front. Usually 5 to 15.

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.

Is PreCheck worth it for you? ›

Another airport nearby?

Airports within driving distance of DEN, and the worst each one gets in its own busiest hour.

Every US airport on one board ›

Airlines at DEN

Which airline you are flying decides your terminal and checkpoint. This is the share of DEN's departures each one runs, from the published schedule.

  • United 33%
  • Southwest 28%
  • SkyWest regional 23%
  • Frontier 7%
  • Delta 4%
  • American 3%
  • Alaska 1%

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 10 am today, at about 34 min. Fill in your flight above to see where your own trip lands.

midnight6 amnoon 6 pm11 pm

The dark bar is now.

Busiest hours at DEN

Every block is one hour of one weekday at DEN, 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
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat

Darker means a heavier checkpoint load. Built from 82,865 scheduled departures from DEN across three months of federal on-time records.

Hour by hour, Monday

Expected standard-lane wait at DEN on a typical Monday. PreCheck and CLEAR run shorter.
HourDepartures Standard PreCheck
midnight 1 5–10 min 3 min
2 am 2 5–10 min 3 min
3 am 8 5–10 min 3 min
4 am 23 5–15 min 3 min
5 am 39 10–25 min 6 min
6 am 53 15–35 min 9 min
7 am 58 20–40 min 10 min
8 am 65 25–45 min 11 min
9 am 65 25–45 min 11 min
10 am 66 25–45 min 12 min
11 am 54 20–35 min 9 min
noon 57 20–40 min 10 min
1 pm 46 15–30 min 7 min
2 pm 51 15–35 min 8 min
3 pm 57 20–40 min 9 min
4 pm 63 20–45 min 11 min
5 pm 56 20–40 min 9 min
6 pm 61 20–45 min 11 min
7 pm 47 15–30 min 7 min
8 pm 27 10–15 min 4 min
9 pm 16 5–10 min 3 min
10 pm 11 5–10 min 3 min
11 pm 4 5–10 min 3 min

Questions people ask about DEN

How early should I get to DEN?

For a domestic flight out of Denver, plan to be inside the terminal about an hour and a quarter before departure, and about an hour and a half for an international one. That covers a 25 to 50 minute checkpoint queue at the Thursday 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 DEN security?

Thursday around 10 am, when 67 departures' worth of passengers are converging on the checkpoint at once. The calmest hour with real traffic is Friday at 9 pm, at roughly 7 minutes.

Is TSA PreCheck worth it at DEN?

At the Thursday peak it turns a 25 to 50 minute queue into something closer to 12 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 DEN?

Denver International 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 midnight, and checkpoints generally open about two hours before the first flight of the day.

The security-now figure at the top is read live from DEN's own checkpoint feed (Fruition), refreshed in your browser and shown as measured only while that reading is fresh; if the feed is unreachable this page falls back to the modelled number. The hour-by-hour projections, the week heatmap and the leave-by calculator below are modelled from the flight schedule: U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance, May 2026, July 2025 and December 2025. Here is exactly how. Page rebuilt 24 August 2026.