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The US CBP provides a convenient online resource that gives the border waiting time in real time, for people queuing from Mexico/Canada to the US, either by car or by foot: https://bwt.cbp.gov/

Is there some online resource that gives the border waiting time in real time or historical data, for people queuing from the US to Mexico?

Google Maps is widely inaccurate. In response to a comment, yes there is sometimes a significant wait time from the US to Mexico by car even though there's no passport check, eg from a Friday at 6pm at San Ysidro (queue time=1h while Google maps was estimating 10 minutes. No accident, and almost all lanes at the border where one has to stop one's car momentarily were opened):

enter image description here

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  • Is there significant wait time these days from US -> Mexico? When I traveled a couple times 13 years ago there was no control whatsoever; the motorway simply went uninterrupted across the border. Obviously nobody was concerned about people leaving ;-). In fact, because I needed an exit stamp in my passport we had to return and line up in the mile-long traffic jam on the Mexican side until I could be processed. The U.S. officer had trouble at first understanding what I wanted and what I did, shook his head and mumbled "we are really punishing the wrong people here..."
    – Peter - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jan 22, 2022 at 18:46
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    @Peter-ReinstateMonica yes, pic added
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Jan 22, 2022 at 23:15
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    @Peter-ReinstateMonica Most days there is no delay, other days you can be stuck on that freeway for hours with no way to escape it. Knowing beforehand there's a delay gives you a chance to divert to Otay or maybe delay a few hours for dinner (the waits are usually in the evening into MX)
    – Midavalo
    Commented Jan 23, 2022 at 4:36

2 Answers 2

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In California, Caltrans has a website with estimates of Autos Southbound Border Wait Times for the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa crossings.

BorderTraffic.com has webcams for many crossings. Some are free, while others involve a fee for access.

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    I use (pay for) Border Traffic for their webcams and their wait times. They have both Mexico to US and US to Mexico, and of all the different services I've used they have been by far the most accurate wait-time predictions. (of course I haven't crossed for 2 years now, so my experience is the 4 or 5 years before Mar 2020)
    – Midavalo
    Commented Jan 22, 2022 at 18:01
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A few people on Reddit told me there exist Facebook groups dedicated to the border queuing times, but it's quite messy:

Zach Lipton's pointer to Caltrans is likely better.

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    Zach Lipton's pointer to Border Traffic is your best option (in my opinion)
    – Midavalo
    Commented Jan 22, 2022 at 18:13

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