Sometimes going through airport security can feel like getting undressed and dressed again but the US Transportation Security Administration is alleviating some of the stress by removing the need to take off shoes at checkpoints, according to a memo sent to staff in early July.
Officially coming into effect from 13 July 2025, the policy shift means passengers should be able to pass through security without having to take off their shoes. They will only be asked to remove their footwear if they trigger a scanner. Some at New York’s LaGuardia and Los Angeles International were already being allowed through checkpoints with their shoes still on, a week early, CBS has reported.
Why the change now?
The change in guidance comes amid huge and ongoing pressure on the US aviation sector to find efficiencies and reduce delays after a number of years of glitches, safety concerns, and mass disruption due to extreme weather events. Federal budget plans just approved have allocated billions of dollars for a long-campaigned for upgrade to air traffic control technology.
Against that backdrop, the TSA’s loosening of footwear checks means that more people will be able to experience a more seamless journey – something until now reserved for TSA PreCheck-approved passengers, a status that costs an annual $85 in the United States.
This winter, we’ll keep our shoes on and our belts buckled because we’re enrolled in #TSAPreCheck. Here’s a cool tip: For 5 years of seamless #WinterTravel, don’t forget to enroll in or renew TSA PreCheck before your next vacation.
— TSA (@TSA) January 6, 2025
Head on over to: https://t.co/OAHTJirnlE pic.twitter.com/lgtWRF5ExO
Why were shoes such a problem?
The shoe removal process was instituted six years after 9/11 and five years after the 2002 incarceration of the infamous shoe bomber Richard Reid. On an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, the explosives the British man had hidden in his shoes failed to detonate. After the smell of the matches he was using filled the cabin, he was restrained by fellow passengers and the flight crew until the plane emergency landed in Boston
It is an incident that has since been cursed by thousands of flyers for the impact it had on safety procedures when boarding flights. Taking off shoes slows everyone down, especially if the footwear is laced or buckled rather than slip-on (and off). Many find baring their feet or socks an embarrassing thing to do. Those with physical differences and neurodivergences can also find it very problematic.
PSA for TSA: you don’t have to take your shoes off at the airport anymore as of today. Wish I would have read the news before I did my usual socks and slides combo like an 80-year-old man. pic.twitter.com/uulFedTBuf
— Lynden Blake (@LyndenBlake) July 8, 2025
The rules have already been relaxed slightly, in 2011, when the TSA decided that children under 12 and older people over the age of 75 pose little risk and therefore could be exempted from shoe removal. Now the latest guidance eases access to flying a little for everyone.
