TRAVELYou Have Been Standing in the Wrong Airport Security Line This Whole Time5 min read

Adding Your Family to the Account

Once you’re enrolled, you can add up to three family members at $99 each per year. Children under 18 ride free when accompanied by a CLEAR member — no membership required for them, no separate enrollment. At stadiums using CLEAR’s Sports & Events access, members can also bring one adult guest per visit through the expedited lane.

The Sports & Events tier is free for all CLEAR members and doesn’t require airport enrollment. It’s separate from the airport product — you won’t get into airport lanes with it — but if your team plays at a participating stadium, you download the app, tap the Sports & Events tile, and skip the security pile-up on game day.

Who Qualifies and How to Sign Up

CLEAR enrollment is open to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents aged 18 and older. Acceptable IDs include a driver’s license, U.S. passport, passport card, permanent resident card, state ID, or military ID. You can start enrollment online but must finish it in person at a CLEAR kiosk — the biometrics have to be collected somewhere.

The in-person step takes about five minutes with no appointment needed. You’ll answer a few identity questions, show your ID, enter a payment method, and scan your fingerprints and irises. After that, every future trip starts at the kiosk, not the line.

Whether CLEAR is worth $199 a year depends entirely on how often you fly and from which airports. At a busy hub where security regularly eats 30 minutes, the math tilts quickly in CLEAR’s favor — especially if a credit card is already covering the cost. At a smaller regional airport where the line is four people deep at 6 a.m., it’s a harder sell. But for frequent flyers who’ve ever missed a tight connection because of the document queue, the answer is usually obvious.