Wait Times At Cancun Airport Immigration Have Gone Down Considerably

Last Updated 3 years ago

Wait times at immigration in the Cancun airport have been an issue throughout the entire year. Back in March tourists reported that they had spent north of 2 hours in line to be able to effectively enter the country. The most time that people have waited in recent dates is down to an hour. This issue heavily worried people in the local tourism industry who put pressure on immigration authorities to solve the long wait time problem. 

Over the Easter break more immigration officers were sent to the Cancun airport to cover the growing demand. Around that time it was reported that over 150 immigration officers were effectively assigned to the Cancun airport. 100 of them are set to be on duty during the peak hours of the day covering 24 hour shifts. The increase in the number of immigration officers combined with the fact that May isn’t necessarily a heavy tourism month helped reduce the wait times considerably. 

How Much Time Are People Actually Waiting At Immigration?      

Lowering the wait times by one hour seems to be a massive accomplishment in the grand scheme of things. That being said, getting off a plane potentially after a transatlantic flight to have to wait in line for an hour at immigration is not ideal. As it turns out though, tourists could be waiting for much less to be granted access to the country, it really all depends on the terminal that you land in. 

Terminal 2 on average saw visitors have to wait in line at least 12 minutes to be able to reach the immigration desk. Now the lower end of the wait time at this terminal is said to be about 7 minutes. If you arrive at an unfortunate hour of the day in which many international flights are reaching Cancun you would’ve had to wait upwards of 90 minutes to go through immigration at this terminal. The maximum wait times that are being reported through the month of May have only reached the hour mark. 

Arriving at Terminal 3 on average will mean a wait time of 13 minutes instead of the usual 15. On the higher end of the spectrum wait times at this terminal went from upwards of 80 to about 50. Finally, terminal 4 seems to be the one that has seen the least amount of change. The wait time at this terminal has remained at 8 minutes on average on the low end. If you get there at a bad time you can still be looking at a 54 minute wait time. That amount of time is down from 56 which was the highest point back in March.      

What Are The Odds Of Getting Turned Back At The Cancun Airport? 

Of course, just getting to the immigration desk is just half the battle. The officer has to make sure that your papers check out to be able to let you through to enjoy Cancun beaches. The refusal rate at immigration is extremely low, so you shouldn’t be too worried about immigration trouble.

Mexican immigration officials announced that 3 million 323 thousand people had been through immigration at the Cancun airport in the first 4 months of the year. Out of all of those people only 8 thousand 786 people were turned away. With Colombian nationals being the ones that had a tougher time getting through immigration. 

The Digital Immigration Kiosks Are Still Not Active       

Even though a law was passed to allow tourists to go through immigration checks at a digital kiosk instead of the traditional desk, the use of technology for this process is still up in the air. Authorities have yet to determine how the digital immigration process is going to work. By all accounts though, when operational this should reduce wait times even further.  

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