How Busy is the US-Mexico Land Border?

Mexico and the United States share a 1,954-mile land border, stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.  This land border (parts of which encompass the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo) is the busiest land border in the world and strategically important to both countries for their shared interests in commerce, culture, and tourism.  The movement of people and vehicles across this land space is a cornerstone of the economic well-being of all Mexican and US border states.

The US Department of Transport collects detailed records of border crossings every day and very helpfully makes those data available via its website.

To better understand the scope of these passenger and vehicle crossings, we downloaded the data for 2019 —before the land border became restricted in 2020— to get a handle on how much traffic typically crosses the US-Mexico land border.

This is what the data reveal:

US-Mexico land border crossings by type (2019)

The US DOT’s data classifies ‘crossing types’ into the groups listed in the table below.  The numbers represent ‘crossings’ not unique numbers of people and vehicles.  The data reveal that in 2019 there were:

Crossings Type	Volume
Passengers in Personal Vehicles	136,890,096
Pedestrians	49,175,926
Bus Passengers	2,153,331
Train Passengers	9,568
Personal Vehicles	73,085,262
Buses	151,541
Trains	11,673
Trucks	6,440,255
Truck Containers (Full)	4,766,152
Truck Containers (Empty)	1,754,507
Rail Containers (Full)	491,994
Rail Containers (Empty)	607,840

Summary analysis of land border crossings (2019)

There were 239,567,746 passenger crossings in 2019, of which:

• 188,228,921 (79%) were Passengers in Personal Vehicles; and
• 49,175,926 (20%) were Pedestrians;
• there were 2,153,331 Bus Passengers (1%), and
• 9,568 Train Passengers (negligible %).

There were 79,828,599 vehicle crossings in 2019, of which:

• 73,085,262 (92%) were Personal Vehicles;
• 6,591,796 (7.8%) were Commercial Trucks; and
• 151,541 (0.2%) were Buses.

Related to the transportation of goods by road and rail, in 2019 there were:

• 6,520,659 Truck Container crossings of which 4,766,152 were full and 1,754,507 were empty;
• in addition, there were 1,099,834 Rail Container crossings of which 491,994 were full and 607,840 were empty.

Busiest US-Mexico land border crossing points

This table shows the the top 10 border crossings along the US-Mexico land border in 2019, by volume and type.  San Ysidro is the busiest crossing by far, followed by El Paso.  Most of the the annual crossings are made by personal vehicles and their passengers, and pedestrians.

Crossing Name	Crossing Type	Volume
San Ysidro	Personal Vehicle Passengers	25,845,348
El Paso	Personal Vehicle Passengers	18,703,243
San Ysidro	Personal Vehicles	14,979,363
Otay Mesa	Personal Vehicle Passengers	11,372,048
San Ysidro	Pedestrians	10,799,398
El Paso	Personal Vehicles	10,528,448
Laredo	Personal Vehicle Passengers	10,373,765
Brownsville	Personal Vehicle Passengers	9,416,489
Calexico	Personal Vehicle Passengers	9,005,892
Hidalgo	Personal Vehicle Passengers	8,267,555

Data Source: You can learn more about border crossing volumes and types and download the data from the US DOT website.  The data sets also contain crossings between the US and Canadian land border, which are not included in the data presented in this article.

Learn more about driving in Mexico

Mexperience offers articles with insights to help you prepare for your road trip and drive confidently in Mexico.

• Insuring your vehicle for driving in Mexico
• Importing a foreign car or other vehicle to Mexico
• Getting a Temporary Import Permit (TIP) for your vehicle
• Your Mexico road trip checklist
• Latest articles about driving in Mexico
• Guide to auto insurance in Mexico