Whether a government shutdown reaches your Global Entry interview depends on what lapses, not on the word itself. In the shutdowns on record, the enrollment centers closed and booked interviews were cancelled. In February 2026 something wider happened: Global Entry processing itself was suspended, for seventeen days.
This guide records what happened each time and what applicants were told to do. It describes the effects, not the politics.
This guide was last checked against CBP's published guidance on September 15, 2026. Shutdown situations change quickly, so treat the dated accounts below as history and your TTP account as the current word.
An applicant posted the email they had received that morning: all Global Entry enrollment centers were closed because of the shutdown. The lapse lasted three days.
A CBP email quoted in reporting at the time said that all Global Entry enrollment centers were temporarily closed, and told applicants to reschedule after government operations resumed. Readers reported interviews cancelled in Philadelphia and Boston.
Two details from that episode are worth carrying forward. CBP contacted affected applicants directly, and the instruction was to reschedule — not to do nothing and not to cancel.
This one was the pandemic rather than a funding lapse, and it is here because it shows the shape of a long closure. CBP suspended enrollment center operations from March 19, 2020, initially until at least May 1, and conditionally approved applicants were told to reschedule once centers reopened. The suspension was extended repeatedly and ran to September 8, 2020.
CBP's closure notice pointed conditionally approved applicants to Enrollment on Arrival, then offered at 60 airports, as still available. That is the single most useful fact in this post: when centers close, the arrival route can still be open.
A full funding lapse ran from October 1 to November 12, 2025. No CBP statement was retrieved for it, so what follows is reporting rather than published guidance: Global Entry enrollment was described as non-essential for the duration, with delays for new applications and for in-person interviews. Existing members were reported to have had no problem using the kiosks, and TSA PreCheck enrollment continued.
Because the details came from reporting rather than from CBP, do not assume any particular center behaved the way another one did.
A partial lapse beginning February 14, 2026 affected the Department of Homeland Security. On February 22, 2026 DHS said the Global Entry program would remain shut down while that partial shutdown was in effect, and CBP halted Global Entry arrival processing at 6 a.m. that day, according to reporting.
Processing was reported restored as of 5 a.m. Eastern time on March 11, 2026 — seventeen days. Enrollment interviews, which were also paused, were expected to resume, and there were reports of residual backlogs at Boston, Seattle and Houston afterwards.
This is the case that breaks the usual rule of thumb. It is the one shutdown on this list where being an existing member did not insulate you, and where Enrollment on Arrival was reported paused too, because arrival processing was exactly what had stopped.
Three things stay where they were, and one of them can hurt.
It is also worth knowing that cancellations are not always about funding. In summer 2019, with no shutdown in progress, CBP reassigned officers to the southwest border and that was reported to have forced the cancellation of some scheduled appointments, with Enrollment on Arrival offered as the alternative. A cancelled interview is not evidence of a shutdown.
If you hold an interview slot and a lapse looks likely, do not cancel it. The TTP FAQ is explicit that cancelling an appointment could cause your application to be cancelled, and that you should reschedule instead of cancelling. If a shutdown cancels your appointment, CBP is the one doing the cancelling, and that is a different thing from you dropping it.
Keep the email address on your TTP profile current, too. In 2018 the notice arrived by email.
Your TTP account is the authoritative source for the status of your own application and appointment. Reporting is faster; your Dashboard is correct.
If you have an international trip coming up, check whether Enrollment on Arrival is running. CBP kept pointing applicants to it through the 2020 closure and it is the fastest way to finish an interview when centers are shut. But it depends on Global Entry processing being live — in February 2026 it was not, and the arrival route closed with everything else. CBP's Enrollment on Arrival page and the TTP FAQ are the pages to check rather than a forum.
Reopening is not instant. Centers restart, the interviews that were cancelled have to be rebooked, and the applicants who were waiting before the closure are still waiting. Slots return to the scheduler as that capacity is rebuilt, without a published timetable.
Practically, that means two things. Check more than once, because a center that is empty in the morning may not be empty in the evening — the same behavior described in why the scheduler says no appointments available. And widen the set of centers you will accept, since recovery is uneven: compare them on our wait times page. Whether you refresh the scheduler yourself or have an alert service watch it, nothing appears before the centers reopen.
This guide was last checked against CBP's published guidance on September 15, 2026.
If your interview is already overdue and you are trying to make up lost ground, see how to get an earlier Global Entry interview.
By US Global Entry Team