Niagara Falls Rainbow Bridge border wait times

How long the line is to enter the United States at Niagara Falls Rainbow Bridge, from Niagara Falls, Ontario into Niagara Falls, New York, by car and on foot, as U.S. Customs and Border Protection posts it, and the hours it’s usually shortest.

Cars, standard lanes: 7 min
Walking, standard lanes: Closed
Posted by CBP: Oct 30, 7:37 AM EDT

Copied Oct 30, 2026, 7:48 AM Michigan time. With JavaScript on, the waits above refresh from CBP when the page opens.

Open 24 hours. Up to 16 car lanes. Up to 1 pedestrian lanes. CBP port number 090102.

CBP’s notice: A Ready Lane is available from 3-7pm Monday through Thursday.

Best and worst times to cross

By car (standard lanes), usually quickest on Thursday at 4 AM (no wait); usually slowest on Saturday at 10 PM (36 min on average).

On foot, usually no wait at any hour.

Every lane Now and usually

Lane	Now	Open	Usual	Readings, 30 days
Cars, standard lanes	7 min	1	8 min	780
Walking, standard lanes	Closed	—	0 min CBP	0

“Usual” is the average over the last 30 days; where it says CBP, it’s CBP’s own published average for October, from the year before, because there aren’t enough readings here yet. NEXUS is CBP’s trusted-traveler lane; the Ready Lane is for travelers carrying an RFID-enabled document (a passport card, a border crossing card, an enhanced driver’s license). First reading on record: Sep 14, 2026.

By car: usual wait by day and hour Cars, standard lanes, last 30 days, minutes

Hour	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
12 AM	10	2	4	5	6	12	12
1 AM	6	2	2	6	9	9	8
2 AM	2	2	1	1	5	12	12
3 AM	1	3	0	0	2	9	5
4 AM	0	1	0	0	0	1	6
5 AM	4	1	0	1	3	9	4
6 AM	6	2	3	2	8	3	7
7 AM	12	7	7	3	15	13	8
8 AM	3	7	2	9	18	26	7
9 AM	5	6	3	5	4	22	8
10 AM	14	13	6	6	5	23	16
11 AM	14	18	16	7	11	25	24
12 PM	17	24	7	12	14	29	21
1 PM	14	9	3	10	10	35	16
2 PM	8	3	6	10	7	33	17
3 PM	6	4	11	4	11	17	26
4 PM	3	10	11	4	5	7	16
5 PM	4	4	16	6	11	6	20
6 PM	1	7	8	4	9	7	15
7 PM	3	2	4	5	7	3	8
8 PM	4	6	10	6	8	10	7
9 PM	4	5	8	4	10	28	4
10 PM	1	3	20	4	6	36	3
11 PM	2	2	6	4	12	31	3

Under 10 min
10–29 min
30–59 min
60–89 min
90 min or more

A dot is an hour with no readings: the lane was closed or CBP posted no wait. A closed lane counts as unknown, not as zero, so it never makes a crossing look faster than it is. Average over the last 30 days: 8 min, from 780 readings.

On foot: October last year Walking, standard lanes, CBP’s averages, minutes

Hour	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
12 AM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
1 AM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2 AM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
3 AM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
4 AM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
5 AM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
6 AM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
7 AM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
8 AM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
9 AM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
10 AM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
11 AM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
12 PM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
1 PM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2 PM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
3 PM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
4 PM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
5 PM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
6 PM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
7 PM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
8 PM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
9 PM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
10 PM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
11 PM	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Under 10 min
10–29 min
30–59 min
60–89 min
90 min or more

These are CBP’s own averages for October, based on the year before. This site’s own averages appear here once a few days of readings are collected.

Nearby crossings right now If this one is backed up

Crossing	By car	On foot	Posted
Buffalo Peace Bridge	2 min	—	Oct 30, 7:37 AM EDT
Lewiston–Queenston Bridge	5 min	—	Oct 30, 7:37 AM EDT

By car and on foot: each crossing’s main lane, nearly always the standard lanes.

By car, by hour of day All days, last 30 days

Hour	Average	Bar
12 AM	7 min
1 AM	6 min
2 AM	4 min
3 AM	2 min
4 AM	1 min
5 AM	3 min
6 AM	4 min
7 AM	9 min
8 AM	10 min
9 AM	7 min
10 AM	11 min
11 AM	15 min
12 PM	16 min
1 PM	13 min
2 PM	11 min
3 PM	11 min
4 PM	8 min
5 PM	10 min
6 PM	7 min
7 PM	5 min
8 PM	7 min
9 PM	8 min
10 PM	10 min
11 PM	7 min

The last 7 days Cars, standard lanes · Fri, Oct 23 to Fri, Oct 30

64 min0

Gaps are hours the lane was closed or posted nothing.

Common questions Niagara Falls Rainbow Bridge

How long is the wait at Niagara Falls Rainbow Bridge right now?

At CBP’s last reading (Oct 30, 7:37 AM EDT), the line by car (standard lanes) was 7 min. The box at the top refreshes from CBP when you open this page.

What’s the best time to cross?

Over the last 30 days, the car line has usually been shortest on Thursday at 4 AM and longest on Saturday at 10 PM. The heat map above shows every hour.

When is it open?

24 hours a day.

For trucks, the commercial lane waits have a board of their own.

About these numbers

Copied Oct 30, 2026, 7:48 AM Michigan time

Officers at each port of entry post every lane’s wait about once an hour to CBP’s Border Wait Times system. A small Cloudflare Worker reads it every half hour and keeps each reading once; the last-30-days averages come from that record. The averages from the year before are CBP’s own.

Times are the crossing’s local time. A closed lane or a pending reading counts as unknown, never as zero. The board has every crossing right now and how it all works, and the data is a CSV download.

Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection; readings from September 13 to October 20, 2026 as saved by gptcbp/border-crossing-data. The numbers are public; any mistakes in presenting them are mine.