TTPRADAROn September 6, 2026, a scan of 114 Global Entry enrollment centers found San Juan, Puerto Rico and Guam International Airport both sitting on same-day interview availability. Salt Lake City's next open slot was 163 days out. Phoenix Sky Harbor and San Francisco were each booked 50 days out.
That gap is real, but it's not a simple mainland-versus-territory story. Here's what the data actually shows, and whether you can use a territory center if you've never set foot in Puerto Rico or Guam.
The gap, in one day's data
CBP maintains enrollment centers in San Juan and at Guam International Airport as part of its national network, listed alongside every other US location. On the day TTPRadar checked, both had interview slots open immediately, while several of the busiest mainland hubs were booked out for months.
The wait-time picture changes daily across the network. You can check current openings for any center, including San Juan and Guam, on the live wait times page.
It's not really mainland versus territory
The same scan that found San Juan and Guam wide open also found same-day slots at JFK, Newark, Detroit, Grand Portage in Minnesota, Austin-Bergstrom, and Laredo. Those are mainland centers, and none of them are obscure.
The actual pattern is capacity versus local demand at each individual center, not geography. A center with fewer local applicants trying to book it, relative to how many interview slots it runs, opens up fast, whether that's a small mainland airport or a US territory center. Salt Lake City, Phoenix, and San Francisco are simply where demand is outrunning supply right now.
Whether the specific centers running fast or slow stay that way is not something a single day's scan can tell you. This was one snapshot, not a trend line.
Yes, you can book Guam or San Juan from anywhere
Once you're conditionally approved, the Trusted Traveler Programs scheduler lets you book an interview at any enrollment center in the country. There's no residency requirement tying you to a center near your home address. A conditionally-approved applicant in Ohio can legally book San Juan or Guam the same way they'd book Phoenix.
The approval you get is identical no matter where the interview happens. Global Entry is one national five-year membership: there's no tier or restriction based on which center conducted your interview, and your membership works at every Global Entry kiosk and lane in the country from day one. The full list of centers we track is on the locations page.
The trade-offs of flying in for an interview
Booking a same-day slot in San Juan or Guam solves the appointment problem, not the travel problem. You still need to physically get there, which for most applicants means a flight, and possibly an overnight stay, just to sit down for one interview appointment.
That math only makes sense in a few situations: you already have travel planned to Puerto Rico or Guam anyway, you're chasing a hard deadline like an upcoming international trip and every mainland center near you is booked past that date, or the cost of the flight is genuinely less painful to you than the wait. For most applicants sitting on a 50 or 163 day mainland wait, the more practical move is watching for cancellations and reschedules that open up closer to home, which is what automated appointment alerts are built to catch.
Skip the dedicated trip entirely
If you already have an international trip booked, CBP's Enrollment on Arrival option lets a conditionally-approved applicant complete the interview with a CBP officer on return to the US, at participating airports, at no extra cost. It won't help if you have no travel plans lined up, but if you do, it avoids both the scheduler and a special trip to a territory center altogether.
2026 has already been an unusual year for the program. DHS suspended Global Entry processing nationwide for roughly 17 days, from February 22 to March 12, during a partial government shutdown, before resuming normal operations. There's no verified evidence linking that pause to the specific wait-time split seen in September, but it's a reminder that enrollment center availability nationwide can shift for reasons that have nothing to do with any single center's normal demand.