Reported as of 3:45 pm on Oct. 3, 2025.
Planes will still be flying, and air traffic controllers and TSA agents will still be on the job, but the ongoing shutdown of the federal government will impact travelers in many other ways.
Federal funding ran out earlier this week after Congress failed to reach an agreement on a budget resolution that would have kept the government operating in the short term; a long-term budget deal is still far out of reach for the current fiscal year, which began on October 1, 2025.
As a result, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and Customs and Border Protection will have to freeze hiring and training, and existing employees won’t get paid.
The net result could be longer wait times at airport security checkpoints and border checkpoints manned by people who aren’t being compensated for their time on the job. In the past, for example, air traffic controllers called into work and prompted massive delays in air travel, which helped hasten the end of the last government shutdown in 2019.
For tourists, the shutdown means locked gates at U.S. National Parks, including the Statue of Liberty in New York and parks like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone. Museums operated by the Smithsonian, which operates on a mix of public and private funds, will stay open until at least Oct. 6 using money from the previous fiscal year, officials said, but operational plans remain uncertain beyond that date. That includes the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
According to the U.S. State Department, travelers will still be able to get passports and visas, and overseas embassies and consulates will remain open.
“The longer a shutdown drags on, the more likely we are to see longer TSA lines, flight delays and cancellations, national parks in disrepair and unnecessary delays in modernizing travel infrastructure,” said U.S. Travel Association president and CEO Geoff Freeman.
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