Tens of Thousands of Device Searches a Year: The New Reality at US Borders

Numbers have a way of cutting through noise. You can argue about court rulings and policies all day, but when an agency publishes that it searched 55,318 phones, laptops, and tablets in a single year, up nearly a fifth from the year before, the debate shifts. This is no longer a hypothetical that happens to other people. It is a practice with a growth curve, and if you cross US borders with a work laptop, you should know what that curve looks like.

Let me be clear about what these numbers do and do not mean. They do not mean your phone will be searched on your next trip. They do mean the odds, while still tiny, are moving in one direction, and that direction has been consistent for years. Here is the full picture, in plain language, and what it means for how you travel.

The numbers, year by year

US Customs and Border Protection publishes its device search statistics, and the trend is hard to misread. In fiscal year 2023, the agency searched roughly 41,800 electronic devices at ports of entry. In fiscal year 2024, that rose to 47,047. In fiscal year 2025, it hit 55,318, a new record, up 17.6 percent in a single year and up about a third in two years.

The breakdown inside that total matters. Of the 55,318 searches in FY2025, 50,922 were basic searches, the kind where an officer manually looks through your device with no suspicion required and no equipment involved. The remaining 4,396 were advanced searches, where external equipment is connected to copy or analyze the contents, the kind that requires reasonable suspicion and supervisor approval. Basic searches grew much faster than advanced ones, which tells you the growth is in routine manual inspection, not just targeted forensic work.

And the early data for fiscal year 2026 suggests no slowdown. Quarterly figures released by CBP show device searches running above the FY2025 pace, with one recent quarter approaching 20,000 searches. If that pace holds, the next record is already being set.

Fewer than 0.01 percent, and why that statistic misleads

CBP is quick to add context, and the context is real: the agency processed about 419 million travelers at ports of entry in FY2025. Against that denominator, 55,318 searches represent fewer than 0.01 percent of arriving international travelers, and about 0.47 percent of travelers sent to secondary inspection. Statistically, your chances of being searched on any given crossing are minuscule.

But averages mislead in two ways. First, searches are not randomly distributed. Officers exercise discretion, and certain profiles, travel patterns, and secondary inspection referrals concentrate the risk. Your personal odds depend on factors the aggregate number hides. Second, and more importantly for planning, “rare” is not the same as “not worth preparing for.” You buy travel insurance for events far less likely than a 1-in-10,000 chance. Preparing your devices costs less than an hour and protects against not just searches but theft, loss, and damage too.

The right way to read the 0.01 percent figure is as reassurance against panic, not as a reason for complacency. You do not need to be afraid. You do need a routine.

The most striking trend: Americans’ devices

Buried in the statistics is the number that surprised even longtime watchers. In FY2025, 13,590 of the device searches involved American citizens. Compare that to 2023, when the figure was 8,657. Searches of Americans’ devices are up sharply, and they now make up roughly a quarter of all device searches.

Why does this matter? Because the common assumption among US-based remote workers is that citizenship is a shield. Legally, it changes the calculus: a US citizen cannot be denied entry for refusing to provide a passcode, though refusal can mean detention, delay, and the device being held. Practically, the numbers show that citizenship does not make you invisible to the practice. The search power is being used more, across the board, on citizens and non-citizens alike. Non-citizens saw searches rise too, from 36,506 in FY2024 to 41,728 in FY2025.

The courts have moved in the same direction as the numbers. In 2026, both the Fourth Circuit and the Second Circuit confirmed that manual device searches at the border require no warrant and no suspicion, with the Second Circuit’s September 2026 ruling in the Alisigwe case at JFK giving the practice explicit judicial blessing across major East Coast gateways. A Supreme Court petition is pending that could settle the question nationally, but the current legal trajectory favors the government.

What the growth means for traveling workers

Here is the part that affects you directly. Remote workers are, by definition, frequent border crossers who carry their livelihoods on their devices. A consultant flying into the US four times a year for client work, a nomad returning home between stints abroad, a freelancer with contracts in three countries: each crossing is a roll of the dice, and the dice are being rolled more often.

The content on a work laptop raises the stakes beyond personal embarrassment. Client data, proprietary code, financial records, credentials to company systems, messages with business partners: a manual search can expose all of it to a stranger in a uniform, and whatever is seen cannot be unseen. This is not an argument against traveling with a laptop. It is an argument for treating the laptop as a window into your work, not the vault that holds it.

That is the shift the statistics are really pushing toward. The workers who sleep well are the ones whose devices carry the minimum: the current project, the logins for this trip, nothing more. Everything else lives at home, reachable remotely, backed up properly, and entirely absent from the bag going through the X-ray machine.

The practical routine, in five steps

One: audit before you fly. Once per trip, spend twenty minutes removing what the trip does not need. Old downloads, archived projects, personal documents, apps you have not opened in months. Back it all up at home first.

Two: sign out of the sensitive stuff. Banking apps, password managers, admin consoles, anything with other people’s data. Sign out before landing and sign back in at the hotel.

Three: power down at the border. A powered-off device needs the full passcode on boot and keeps apps from refreshing in the background. It also just looks calm and cooperative.

Four: know your answers. What you say about your work can matter as much as what is on your devices. Keep answers short, truthful, and consistent with your visa or entry category. Answer what is asked and stop there.

Five: if searched, stay polite and take notes. Do not argue, do not resist, do not delete things in front of an officer. Note names, badge numbers, and times. Talk to a lawyer later if you believe your rights were violated.

The deeper answer the numbers point to

Step back from the statistics and look at the underlying pattern. Every trend here, the rising search counts, the expanding legal authority, the broadening device coverage to smartwatches and USB drives, points to the same conclusion: the border is a place where your devices are exposed, and that exposure is growing. You cannot change the trend. You can only change what you carry into it.

Most of us carry everything because we never built a proper home base for our digital lives. Our work lives in a bag because there was never a better place for it. A home IP setup changes that equation: your connection, your access, and your digital presence stay anchored at home, reachable from anywhere, so the laptop in your carry-on holds less and risks less. It is the kind of setup HomeIPVPN builds for people who live on the move.

The rising search numbers are a symptom, not the disease. The disease is that our entire working lives ride around in our pockets with no safe harbor. That is the root cause HomeIPVPN was built to solve, giving traveling workers a stable home base for their digital lives while they roam. If you would rather have someone set it up and verify it works, the Pre-Travel Audit & Advisory session is 1 hour, costs $79, and that fee comes straight off the $279 Secure Home IP VPN System session if you go ahead. You can book a Pre-Travel Audit & Advisory session at a time that fits your schedule.

Watch the numbers, but do not fear them. Prepare for them. That is what the statistics are really telling you to do.