Checkpoint tech

Touchless ID Is Now at 65 Airports — Is Yours One?

By the TSA Wait Times team · Updated July 2026 · Published July 2026

TSA's PreCheck Touchless ID lane has grown from about 15 airports to roughly 65, an expansion timed to be in place for World Cup travel. The system compares your face to a photo on file and clears your identity in about five to ten seconds — no boarding pass, no ID card, nothing to hand over. A June 24 Google Wallet integration also changed how you sign up, opening opt-in beyond the airlines that built it first.

What changed

TSA expanded Touchless ID from about 15 to roughly 65 airportsin a spring 2026 rollout aimed at being ready for this summer's World Cup travel surge. The system uses facial comparison instead of a physical ID or boarding pass check, and TSA says a Touchless ID match takes about five to ten seconds.

The bigger change for most flyers landed on June 24, 2026, when TSA and Google Wallet launched a one-tap opt-in to Touchless ID. Until then, enrollment ran airline by airline, starting with six original partner airlines — Alaska, American, Delta, Hawaiian, Southwest, and United. The Google Wallet integration opened opt-in beyond that original group, working across more than 100 participating PreCheck airlines instead of requiring a separate sign-up in each one. TSA described Google Wallet as the first digital wallet to offer this kind of built-in, one-tap opt-in to Touchless ID, rather than routing travelers through an airline's own enrollment flow first.

How to use Touchless ID at the checkpoint

Touchless ID only works if you're already a TSA PreCheckmember — it replaces how you prove your identity in the PreCheck lane, not the PreCheck screening itself. Before Google Wallet, opting in meant enrolling directly through a participating airline's app. Now you can also add a Touchless ID pass to Google Wallet and opt in with one tap, which TSA says works across the same 100-plus PreCheck airlines rather than one at a time.

At the checkpoint, an enrolled traveler steps up to the camera at the PreCheck podium instead of handing over an ID or boarding pass. The system compares your face to the photo TSA already has on file and confirms your identity in about five seconds. It's an identity check only — you still walk through the same PreCheck screening lane behind it.

Does it actually move you through security faster?

The honest answer: the identity checkis faster — trading a manual ID look for a five-second camera match is a real time saving at the podium. But that's only the first few seconds of your PreCheck trip. What happens after you clear the podium — the metal detector or CT lane, how many other PreCheck flyers are ahead of you, whether the lane is even staffed and open — still drives most of your total wait, and Touchless ID does nothing to change that. Before you count on it, check whether your airport's PreCheck lane is open right now, since lanes keep their own hours. And if you're still deciding whether PreCheck is the right expedited program for you at all, see how it stacks up in our PreCheck vs. CLEAR vs. Global Entry comparison. TSA and the airlines are framing Touchless ID as a speed upgrade, and the math holds for the step it actually replaces: a five-second camera match beats however long it takes an officer to check a physical ID by hand. What it can't do is skip the line behind the podium — a short-staffed checkpoint or a wave of PreCheck flyers off a full bank of flights will still back up, camera or no camera.

The privacy note: it's opt-in

Touchless ID is voluntary. Reporting on the January 2026 expansion confirms participation is opt-in with an opt-out available — if you'd rather not use facial comparison, you can decline and go through standard ID verification instead, the same process PreCheck travelers used before Touchless ID existed. TSA has also said Touchless ID photos are deleted within 24 hours of your flight departing.

Which airports have it

TSA hasn't published one clean, single list naming all roughly 65 Touchless ID airports, so treat any “full list” you see online with some caution. What is confirmed: TSA's spring 2026 expansion named new priority airports including Houston (IAH), Washington Dulles (IAD), Boston (BOS), Miami (MIA), Orlando (MCO), Baltimore (BWI), and Fort Lauderdale (FLL). American Airlines has also said it extended Touchless ID to all of its hub airports. Beyond that named group, the most reliable way to check is your airline's app at the gate or terminal you're actually flying from — availability still varies by airline and checkpoint, not just by airport.

Part of the confusion is that the rollout happened in stages rather than one announcement: TSA first outlined the 15-to-65 expansion plan in January 2026, called the buildout complete that spring, then kept adding detail — American extending Touchless ID across its hub network, then the June 24 Google Wallet integration — through early summer. A number that gets reported as “final” in January coverage may already be out of date by the time you fly.