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International travelers arriving at Toronto Pearson International Airport are facing longer than usual waits at customs after a Canada Border Services Agency kiosk outage forced many passengers into fully manual border screening lines.
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Primary Inspection Kiosks Offline at Terminals 1 and 3
The Toronto Pearson airport website currently carries an advisory noting that the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is experiencing an outage affecting Primary Inspection Kiosks in both Terminals 1 and 3. The notice warns that passengers may encounter longer than normal wait times at customs while the issue is resolved.
These kiosks, located in the international arrivals halls, are a key part of the normal screening process. Under routine operations, travelers use them to scan passports, have a photo taken, answer customs questions and receive a printed receipt before proceeding to speak with a border services officer. With the machines out of service, that first self‑service step is removed from the flow.
According to publicly available CBSA guidance, the primary inspection area is designed so that travellers either use a kiosk or speak directly to an officer at a booth. When the kiosk option is unavailable, more passengers converge on fewer staffed positions, which can quickly back up arrivals, especially during peak periods such as weekend evenings or major events in Toronto.
Social media and local discussion forums on September 11 and 12 describe large crowds building in the customs hall and report waits ranging from roughly 45 minutes to several hours, particularly for those without any form of expedited processing. While these accounts are anecdotal, they align with the airport’s own warning that delays are likely while the kiosk outage persists.
Manual Processing Bottlenecks Add to Peak‑Season Pressures
The kiosk disruption comes at a time when Toronto Pearson is already managing heavy fall travel demand, including visitors arriving for major downtown events and conferences. When Primary Inspection Kiosks go offline, more arriving passengers must be processed entirely by officers at primary inspection booths, a slower method than the usual hybrid model of self‑service plus officer review.
Federal service standards for border screening frame primary inspection as the first point of contact with CBSA when entering Canada, and they emphasize that keeping wait times within target thresholds depends in part on the capacity provided by automated tools. Outage documentation and briefing notes published in recent years point to past technology failures at CBSA that triggered wide‑ranging delays at major airports, reinforcing the sensitivity of the system to technical interruptions.
Pearson’s own planning documents describe investments in kiosk monitoring and resilience tools intended to allow equipment to operate in limited offline modes and to provide early incident alerts. However, current advisories from the airport indicate that this particular outage is still significant enough to require passengers to prepare for longer queues at customs until full functionality is restored.
Reports shared publicly on travel and local community forums over the past 24 hours suggest that the impact can vary considerably by time of day and flight arrival patterns. Some travelers describe clearing customs in under an hour, while others reference waits that stretch past three hours when multiple long‑haul flights arrive in close succession and all passengers are funneled into manual inspection lines.
NEXUS and Digital Tools Offer Partial Relief
While most arriving passengers are feeling the effects of the kiosk outage, information posted online by frequent travelers indicates that NEXUS users and some verified‑traveller program members may be less affected. These programs typically rely on separate kiosks and dedicated lanes, allowing pre‑approved travellers to complete formalities more quickly even when the main Primary Inspection Kiosks are down.
Toronto Pearson’s digital travel resources also highlight other tools that can help smooth the journey, including mobile apps for US‑bound preclearance and airport wait‑time dashboards that show typical processing times for various checkpoints. However, the advisory connected with the current outage underscores that such wait‑time estimates are guidance only and can change rapidly when systems are disrupted.
Publicly available CBSA and airport materials note that in any outage scenario, the agency prioritizes keeping as many primary inspection lines open as possible while maintaining regular customs and immigration checks. That means staffing is directed to front‑line positions to move passengers through, but processing may still be slower than normal because each interaction requires full officer input without the efficiency gains provided by kiosks.
Travelers posting online from Pearson in recent hours report that staff in the customs hall are directing crowds between different queues as they attempt to balance line lengths and available booths. Some accounts mention that passengers who completed digital declarations in advance were, in certain instances, routed differently from those who had not, though this appears to depend on the exact systems affected and the status of backup procedures at a given moment.
Advice for Travelers Heading into Toronto Pearson
Public information from Toronto Pearson and CBSA, combined with recent traveler reports, points to several practical considerations for anyone flying into the airport while the kiosk outage continues. The most consistent guidance is to build extra time into itineraries, particularly for tight onward connections, ground transport bookings or ticketed events shortly after arrival.
Passengers arriving from overseas may wish to check the airport’s online wait‑time dashboard shortly before landing to get a sense of typical customs processing times, while keeping in mind that actual waits can spike suddenly if multiple large aircraft arrive together or if additional technical issues occur. Airport planning documents emphasize that crowding can develop quickly in the customs hall when automated systems are unavailable, even if conditions earlier in the day appeared normal.
Travelers participating in trusted‑traveller programs, or those who are eligible to enroll, may experience shorter waits than standard lines if dedicated lanes and alternate kiosks remain operational. Nonetheless, online discussions suggest that even expedited queues can slow during widespread outages, so membership is not a guarantee of swift passage in the current circumstances.
For passengers with accessibility needs, families with young children or those connecting onward to domestic flights, public travel advisories recommend contacting airlines and travel providers in advance to discuss options if delays at customs jeopardize later segments. Published CBSA materials indicate that during system disruptions, the agency aims to maintain essential services, but it also acknowledges that lineups and processing times can exceed normal performance targets.
Ongoing Focus on Border Technology Reliability
The situation at Toronto Pearson highlights the central role that technology now plays in border processing at major hubs. Government publications discussing recent CBSA information‑technology outages describe how complications affecting primary inspection kiosks and related systems can ripple across both airport and land‑border operations, resulting in significant wait times for travelers and commercial traffic alike.
In response to earlier incidents, CBSA and airport authorities have laid out modernization plans that emphasize building more resilient digital infrastructure, enhanced kiosk monitoring and the ability to operate in limited offline modes during disruptions. Pearson’s corporate reports detail investments in border modernization projects designed to improve throughput, reduce face‑to‑face document handling and support advanced digital travel credentials as they become more widely deployed.
Despite these efforts, the current outage demonstrates that even partially redundant systems can experience failures that meaningfully affect the passenger experience. As travel volumes through Toronto Pearson remain high, the reliability of CBSA’s border‑processing technology and the robustness of contingency plans will continue to be a focal point for both the airport and the traveling public.
Publicly available information from CBSA indicates that service‑standard performance for the 2025 to 2027 fiscal years will be reported at a later date, which will provide a clearer statistical picture of how often technology issues have affected wait times at primary inspection. For now, travelers arriving in Toronto are being urged through airport advisories and widely shared online posts to anticipate customs delays and to plan their onward journeys accordingly.
Toronto Pearson customs and immigration advisory
Toronto Pearson airport wait time dashboard