You don’t have to take off your shoes at airports anymore, including at MSP

Travelers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport can say goodbye to the airport shoe shuffle.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is rolling out a new policy that will allow travelers to keep their shoes on at airport security checkpoints, according to Metropolitan Airports Commission chair Rick King.

King said he received word from TSA regarding the policy, which went into effect for all airports Monday morning.

For the first time in nearly two decades, passengers in general screening lines, not just those with TSA PreCheck, will be able to keep their shoes on at major airports across the country.

The change marks a major shift in policy since the TSA began requiring shoe removal in 2006, five years after “shoe bomber” Richard Reid’s failed attempt to detonate explosives hidden in his shoes on a transatlantic flight.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to confirm the policy change in a Tuesday morning post on X, where she called it “big news” from the Department of Homeland Security. Gate Access, a travel newsletter written by former TSA agent Caleb Harmon-Marshall, first reported the shift.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem officially announced the change during a Tuesday afternoon news conference at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

“We will be piloting several different security checkpoints across the nation at different airports that will allow individuals to come in through a security checkpoint and maybe not even have to interact with officers at all,” she said in a news release following the news conference. “[They will be able to] walk through machines, keep their bag with them, not remove laptops.”

Noem said she expects the changes will decrease wait times “drastically.”