TSA PreCheck, Global Entry and CLEAR

Three programs that do three different things. Two of them are worth paying for once; the third is a subscription. Most premium travel cards cover one of the fees, so check your wallet before you pay.

What each one is

Prices checked against each program's own site on .

TSA PreCheck

$85 or less

five years

What it gets you
A dedicated domestic security lane. Shoes, belt and light jacket stay on, and laptops and compliant liquids stay in the bag.
What it does not
Domestic departures from US airports only. It does nothing at passport control, and it is not accepted at every checkpoint at every airport.
How long it takes
Online application, then a short in-person appointment. Most approvals come within a few days, though some take longer.

22 cards below cover it

Our TSA PreCheck guide

Source: TSA — TSA PreCheck

Global Entry

$120

five years

What it gets you
Expedited US customs and immigration on arrival from abroad, using a kiosk instead of the queue. Membership includes TSA PreCheck.
What it does not
Speeds up your return to the US. It does nothing at foreign passport control, and the interview backlog can be months at busy enrollment centers.
How long it takes
Application, conditional approval, then an in-person interview. Interview slots are the slow part, and Enrollment on Arrival lets some travelers do it when they next land.

22 cards below cover it

Our Global Entry guide

Source: US Customs and Border Protection — Global Entry

CLEAR+

$219 a year

annual, $125 per added family member

What it gets you
Identity verification by eye or fingerprint at a CLEAR podium, which walks you to the front of the document-check queue.
What it does not
It replaces the ID check, not the screening. You still go through the scanner afterwards, in the PreCheck lane if you have it and the standard one if you do not. Only at airports where CLEAR operates.
How long it takes
Enroll online and finish at a podium, or do the whole thing at the airport in a few minutes.

3 cards below cover it

Our CLEAR Plus guide

Source: CLEAR — CLEAR+

Cards that reimburse the fee

24 current cards, read from our card records rather than kept by hand. Each issuer states its own terms, and the cadence usually matches the enrollment cycle rather than the calendar. Benefit terms last read on .

No longer open to new applicants

Kept here because the credit still applies if you hold one. These cards cannot be applied for and carry no application link anywhere on this site.

Every line in this table comes from the issuer's own benefit terms, stored on the card record rather than kept in the page. 22 of 24 current cards name the programs their credit covers. One card reimburses CLEAR Plus and nothing else — a screening fee rather than a trusted-traveler one — so those two columns are empty on that row. 7 cards state the credit as a sentence rather than a figure, because the issuer publishes a cap that varies by program, and the Credit column quotes that sentence. "Amount not stated" means the card reimburses the fee and no figure is recorded against it: 2 rows here, where the issuer's own terms either state no amount or could not be read. Issuers change these without notice, so check the terms before you rely on one.