Expedited screening
CLEAR Now Costs $219 a Year. Is It Worth It at Your Airport?
By the TSA Wait Times team · Updated · Published July 2026
CLEAR Plus got more expensive again this week, and the usual advice — “worth it if you fly a lot” — skips the part that actually decides the answer: how much line CLEAR has to skip at your specific airport. Here is what changed, and the math with real wait numbers instead of a rule of thumb.
The hike
CLEAR Plus now costs $219 a year, effective July 1, 2026 — up from $189 previously. TSA PreCheck and Global Entry did not move: PreCheck still runs $76.75 to $85 for five years, and Global Entry is still $120 for five years. CLEAR is the only one of the three that just got more expensive, and it is a subscription you pay every single year rather than a five-year fee you renew occasionally.
The math that matters
We do not keep a historical record of how long any checkpoint line has run — nobody publishes that. What we can show you is the gap that exists right now between the general security line and the PreCheck line at five major hubs. That gap is the honest proxy for how much queue CLEAR could actually save you, because CLEAR does not speed up screening — it speeds up getting to screening.
| Airport | General lane | PreCheck lane | Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atlanta (ATL) | 23 min | 8 min | Modeled |
| Los Angeles Int'l (LAX) | 17 min | 5 min | Live |
| San Francisco (SFO) | 2 min | 1 min | Live |
| Denver (DEN) | 23 min | 8 min | Modeled |
| Newark (EWR) | 8 min | 1 min | Live |
“Live” airports are pulling from that airport's own current feed as of the latest refresh (about every 15 minutes); “Modeled” airports are showing a typical wait built from flight schedules and historical patterns, not a live measurement.
The number to look at is the spread between the two columns, not either number alone. Where the general line is running well ahead of PreCheck, there is real queue for CLEAR to skip. Where the two columns are close, the general line is already about as fast as PreCheck, and CLEAR's front-of-line skip buys you almost nothing that day.
Here is the part worth being blunt about: CLEAR does not touch the actual screening. It confirms who you are and walks you past the document-check podium to the front of the line — the same X-ray belt, body scanner, and bag check apply to you as to everyone else at that checkpoint. The savings live entirely in the queue you skip to get there, not in the scanner itself. So the honest way to price CLEAR is against the wait-to-reach-screening gap above, not against some faster version of screening that does not exist.
Who $219 makes sense for
Spread the $219 across a year of flying and the picture gets clearer. At six trips a year, CLEAR costs about $36.50 per trip. At twelve trips, that drops to roughly $18.25 per trip. At two trips a month (24 a year), it is closer to $9 per trip. The more often you fly through an airport where the general line actually runs long, the smaller that per-trip number gets — and the easier it is to justify against even a modest amount of time saved.
A few things can bring the effective price down further: airline elite status with some carriers and a handful of premium travel credit cards discount or fully cover CLEAR membership, so check what you already have before paying full price. For the full breakdown of cost versus speed versus airport coverage across all three expedited-screening options, see TSA PreCheck vs CLEAR vs Global Entry and the head-to-head TSA PreCheck vs CLEAR.
The alternatives
TSA PreCheckis the cheaper lever, and it works on the part of the trip CLEAR does not touch: actual screening. At $76.75 to $85 for five years — about $16 a year — it is a fraction of CLEAR's annual fee, and it speeds up the pat-down-free, laptop-stays-in-the-bag screening itself rather than just the walk to get there.
Touchless ID, TSA's facial-recognition identity check, is included at no extra cost if you already have PreCheck — it is not a separate membership to buy. It is rolling out to more airports this year as an option for enrolled PreCheck travelers to skip showing a physical ID. See which airports have Touchless ID to check if yours is one before you decide whether you need CLEAR on top of PreCheck at all.
The two are not competitors so much as different layers: PreCheck speeds screening, Touchless ID speeds identity verification inside that same PreCheck lane, and CLEAR speeds only the walk to the front of the line. Stack the ones that solve the actual bottleneck at your airport rather than buying all three by default.
Questions travelers are asking
How much does CLEAR cost now?
CLEAR Plus costs $219 a year as of July 1, 2026, up from $189 previously. TSA PreCheck ($76.75–$85 for five years, roughly $16 a year) and Global Entry ($120 for five years, roughly $24 a year) did not change.
Is CLEAR worth $219 a year?
It depends on how much queue your airport actually has to skip and how often you fly. At a busy hub where the general security line runs well ahead of the PreCheck line, frequent flyers can make the per-trip cost small. At a quieter airport, or if you fly only a few times a year, the standard line may already be short enough that $219 buys very little.
Does CLEAR let you skip TSA screening?
No. CLEAR verifies your identity and walks you past the ID-check podium to the front of the screening line — it does not change the screening itself. You still go through the same X-ray, body scanner, and bag check as every other traveler at that checkpoint, whether you have CLEAR or not.
Before you renew or sign up, check your own airport's current gap between the general line and PreCheck, then set your Leave-By Time against today's real wait — it is a faster way to see what a faster lane is actually worth than any national rule of thumb.