You’re Paying a $5.60 TSA Security Fee Every Time You Fly — Congress Is Keeping the Money

Every time you book a flight, a $5.60 charge quietly appears on your receipt. It’s labeled the “September 11 Security Fee.” The promise is simple and serious: your money funds the Transportation Security Administration — the 61,000 men and women standing between you and the next terrorist attack on American soil. It is, in the truest sense, a user fee. You use the service; you pay for it.

Except Congress broke that deal years ago. And right now, as TSA officers across more than 430 American airports work their sixth consecutive week without a paycheck — forced to screen millions of travelers while unable to pay their own bills — the betrayal couldn’t be more glaring. The money is being collected. It is not reaching the people it was meant to pay. And the federal government’s response to passengers demanding accountability? We can’t issue refunds.

This is not just a labor dispute or a partisan shutdown squabble. It is a case study in government overreach, fiscal irresponsibility, and the quiet erosion of a straightforward promise made to the American taxpayer. Conservatives who believe in limited government, honest accounting, and the rule of contract should be outraged — and engaged.

A Fee Built on a Sacred Promise

The September 11 Security Fee was created by Congress in the direct aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks. The logic was sound and deeply conservative in its framework: rather than fund airport security entirely through general taxpayer appropriations, the cost would be borne by those who actually use the system. Fliers pay; fliers get protected. It is the user-fee model at its most principled — targeted, transparent, and tied directly to a specific service.

The fee currently stands at $5.60 per one-way trip, capped at $11.20 for a round trip. Annually, it generates more than $4 billion. In fiscal year 2023 alone, collections hit $4.6 billion. By any measure, that is serious money — enough, in principle, to fund the bulk of TSA’s operations and keep America’s aviation security workforce paid, trained, and equipped.

That was the original intent. Congress had other ideas.

The 2013 Budget Act: When “Bipartisan” Meant Bad for Taxpayers

In 2013, as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act, Congress quietly changed the rules. Rather than directing the full proceeds of the passenger security fee to the TSA, lawmakers mandated that approximately one-third of all collections be diverted to the federal Treasury’s general fund — in other words, to chip away at the national deficit.

On paper, deficit reduction sounds responsible. In practice, this was a bait-and-switch. Passengers were still told they were paying for security. But roughly $1.6 billion per year was siphoned off for general government use. By FY2026, that figure is projected at $1.64 billion — rising to $1.68 billion in FY2027.

To put that in concrete terms: since 2014, Congress has quietly redirected tens of billions of dollars that passengers believed they were paying for aviation security. Meanwhile, TSA’s procurement budget has been starved. Former TSA Administrator David Pekoske told Congress in 2024 that because of the fee diversion, the agency’s rollout of modern biometric screening technology would not be completed until 2049. Ending the diversion entirely, the U.S. Travel Association calculates, would generate $10 billion to invest in state-of-the-art security infrastructure at every U.S. airport.

That is not a rounding error. That is a decade’s worth of progress, stolen.

The Shutdown Exposes the Rot

The ongoing partial government shutdown — now stretching beyond six weeks as Congress remains deadlocked over DHS funding — has ripped the curtain away from this dysfunctional system entirely.

TSA workers are essential employees. They cannot walk off the job. They must appear every day at every major airport, screening passengers and protecting the flying public — without pay. Not deferred pay. Zero pay — until Congress acts.

Here is the maddening reality: the $5.60 fee continues to be collected on every ticket purchased during the shutdown. But because the fee is classified as discretionary spending — subject to the annual appropriations process — TSA cannot legally access it without a Congressional appropriation. The money sits locked in the Treasury, inaccessible.

Over 300 TSA agents have already resigned rather than continue working without pay. Airport lines at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental and Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson have stretched to five and six hours, causing passengers to miss flights. Airlines including Delta, United, and Allegiant have issued voluntary rebooking waivers — a commendable private-sector response to a government-made crisis.

And passengers asking for a refund on the security fee they paid for a service that is functionally broken? TSA’s answer is that it legally cannot issue refunds — while, in the same breath, it defends a $48 million consumer protection penalty against Southwest Airlines. The double standard is breathtaking.

A Question of Accountability — and Conservative Principle

This situation implicates conservative principles directly and concretely.

Personal responsibility and honest dealing: The government collected a fee under an explicit promise — security services in exchange for payment. It then diverted billions from that promise while maintaining the fiction that passengers were getting what they paid for. That is not governance; that is fraud by another name.

Limited government: The fee-diversion scheme is a textbook example of government expanding beyond its mandate. Congress found a revenue stream shielded from political heat — buried in airline receipts — and quietly redirected it for general spending. This is precisely the kind of fiscal sleight-of-hand that erodes public trust and grows government beyond its stated purpose.

Law and order: TSA officers are on the front lines of national security. Asking them to work without pay — while the fee meant to compensate them sits inaccessible in a government account — is a failure of the government’s most basic obligation to those who serve it. Morale is collapsing. Officers are quitting. The security of every American who flies is being compromised in real time.

The PAY TSA Act: A Common-Sense Fix

On March 18, 2026, Congressman Nick Langworthy introduced the PAY TSA Act of 2026 — legislation that would create a dedicated Transportation Security Trust Fund, ensuring that the $5.60 fee is used exclusively for aviation security. During any lapse in appropriations, the trust fund would allow TSA officers to keep getting paid and screening to continue uninterrupted. The bill would also end the $1.6 billion annual diversion to the general fund.

This is not radical. The federal gas tax already operates this way — funds flow directly into the Highway Trust Fund, outside the appropriations process, meaning highway workers get paid even during shutdowns. There is no principled reason airport security should operate any differently.

As Erik Hansen of the U.S. Travel Association stated: “Every time you buy a ticket and walk through the TSA line, Congress is taking a third of the money — a billion dollars a year — and putting it towards something that has nothing to do with aviation security.”

What You Can Do

The American traveler is not powerless here. The $5.60 on your receipt is your money, paid under a specific promise. That promise has been broken — systematically, quietly, and for over a decade.

Contact your representatives. Ask them specifically where they stand on the PAY TSA Act of 2026 and ending the diversion of the September 11 Security Fee. This is not a left-right issue — it is a right-and-wrong issue.

Stay informed and share widely. Most passengers have no idea this diversion exists. Knowledge is the first step toward accountability.

Hold the line on fiscal honesty. The next time a politician talks about “responsible budgeting,” ask them how diverting billions from a dedicated security fund — while telling the public their money goes to TSA — squares with that claim.

America’s airports should be models of order, efficiency, and security. Instead, they have become a stage for one of Washington’s oldest performances: collecting money from citizens, spending it elsewhere, and calling it governance. The TSA’s 61,000 officers deserve better. The flying public deserves better. And the American taxpayer — who has quietly subsidized this scheme with every ticket purchased for over a decade — deserves the truth, and a government worthy of the trust they have placed in it.

Sources: CNN (March 23, 2026), PolitiFact (March 23, 2026), Nextgov/FCW (February 19, 2025), CBS News (March 2026), TSA.gov, U.S. Travel Association, Office of Congressman Nick Langworthy.