Here's Your Last-Minute Christmas Travel Cheat Sheet

Procrastination around the holidays comes in many forms. There are plenty of us who, for instance, fail to shop for holiday gifts until the very last minute. Because what's more fun than zooming around town on Christmas Eve searching for just the right presents?

Neglecting to book holiday airline tickets until it becomes a do-or-die scenario is yet another common form of procrastination.

If that's you (no judgment), you may want to read on and take note of the advice surrounding which days to book your flight and which days to avoid for Christmas 2025, if the aim is minimizing crowds or saving cash.

A recent report from NerdWallet breaks down what it says are the two best strategies for Christmas travel. Those strategies are (drum roll, please): traveling on the holiday itself, or departing earlier and leaving later.

Let’s start with the idea that you might travel on Christmas Day.

According to Nerdwallet, when looking at the average number of travelers reported by TSA from 2021 to 2024 for the seven days before and after Christmas Day, the least crowded travel day consistently turns out to be December 25.

This isn’t entirely shocking of course, given that many people want to have already reached their destination by Christmas Day. But if you don’t mind arriving at your intended destination on the holiday itself, there is certainly a case to be made for booking your flight on December 25.

If you’d like to arrive at least a little bit in advance of the big day, don’t despair. December 24 turns out to be the second-quietest option according to Nerdwallet.

“Assuming you don't mind spending part of your holiday in the air, Christmas Day or Christmas Eve are the best days to fly during the last two weeks of the year,” the Nerdwallet report explains.

“While airport crowds dramatically increase in the days before and after the holiday, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day crowds remain light. Historical data shows that significantly more people fly on the day after Christmas compared to Christmas Day itself,” the report adds.

Okay, now let’s look at Plan B: departing earlier and returning later. What does this really mean?

Nerdwallet’s data analysis of four years of travel data reveals that that least crowded days to fly in the seven days prior and seven days following Christmas are:

• Dec. 18 (Thursday before Christmas)
• Jan. 1 (New Year’s Day)
• Dec. 31 (New Year’s Eve).

  
  

Days to avoid flying around Christmas

Nerdwallet’s analysis of TSA data also nails down the days when you can expect the largest crowds at airports. Translation: Days to avoid like the plague.

It seems that the absolute busiest travel days around Christmas follow a predictable pattern. (And this holds true regardless of what day of the week Christmas happens to fall on each year).

For 2025, the days to avoid flying are: 

• Friday, Dec. 19: The Friday before Christmas often ranks as one of the top three busiest travel days, says Nerdwallet.
• Saturday, Dec. 20: The weekend before Christmas is typically brutal for travel, as people try to reach their destinations for the week ahead.
• Sunday, Dec. 21: This date marks the continuation of the weekend crush, plus people returning from weekend travel.

• Friday, Dec. 26: The post-Christmas travel rush begins as everyone seeks to make their way home.
• Sunday, Dec. 28: Be prepared to fly with countless other travelers who are returning from long weekends, says Nerdwallet.

But of all the aforementioned days to avoid, Friday, December 19 is the day you won’t want to be anywhere near an airport.

“The Friday before Christmas is consistently the worst day to fly, with 2.8 million people passing through TSA security checkpoints on that day last year,” says the report.

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