A new ranking on traffic congestion in cities around the globe confirms what you already knew: Seattle drivers waste a lot of time sitting in traffic — and congestion got even worse last year.
According to the latest TomTom Traffic Index, Seattle ranked seventh among U.S. cities for congestion in 2025. The average congestion level in 2025 was about 45%, meaning trips took nearly one-and-a-half times as long as they would under free-flow conditions. That was up roughly 2.5 percentage points from the year before, when Seattle ranked eighth for congestion.
TomTom is an Amsterdam-based software company that provides navigation and location-based products and services. Their annual index, now in its 15th year, draws on anonymized GPS data from more than 2 trillion miles of driving worldwide to compare congestion levels, speeds, and time lost to traffic across cities and countries.
Another similar ranking, the INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard, ranked Seattle 10th worst in the U.S. for congestion in 2025.
According to TomTom's data, Seattle drivers on average lost about 66 hours to rush-hour traffic over the course of the year, roughly six hours more than in 2024.
A typical 6-mile drive during Seattle's morning rush took nearly 19 minutes, while the same trip in the evening stretched to just over 22 minutes. Average speeds dipped to around 19 mph in the morning and closer to 16 mph in the evening.
Los Angeles once again topped the U.S. list for congestion with a 60% level, followed by Honolulu, San Francisco and New York.
New York, meanwhile, retained its title as the slowest city overall, with drivers losing an estimated 120 hours a year to peak-hour traffic. By comparison, Seattle’s 66 lost hours looks modest, though that may be cold comfort to anyone inching along I-5 at 5 p.m.
The worst day to travel in the metro area last year was Thursday, Aug. 7, when congestion levels surged to an average of 84%, and peaked at 155% at 5 p.m., well above typical rush-hour norms. I couldn't find anything special about that date to explain why, but TomTom's data shows overall the summer months had the worst congestion of the year in Seattle.
Nationally, the data shows that the traditional “rush hour” continues to stretch well beyond an hour, both in mornings and evenings. And midday and early-afternoon traffic now exceeds 2019 levels, suggesting more errands, flexible schedules, and hybrid work schedules.
Midweek congestion is worse in many cities than it is on Mondays or Fridays, which is also likely due to COVID-era hybrid work schedules that cluster commuting midweek and spread trips across more hours of the day.
Seattle and other tech-centric metro areas such as San Francisco, San Jose, Calif., Austin, Texas, Denver and Boston all lagged behind their 2019 average delays and had the most pronounced midweek surges.
Despite some famously clogged cities, the United States remains one of the least congested countries in the world overall. In 2025, the U.S. ranked 54th globally, with an average congestion level of about 19%. That’s far lower than countries such as Colombia, Malta and the Philippines, which topped the global rankings, and below many European nations.
The explanation is largely geographic. The U.S. has an expansive road network, lower population density, and generally higher travel speeds outside its largest metros. In other words, gridlock is highly localized.
Globally, congestion continued to rise in 2025, with average levels climbing from about 20% to 25%, according to TomTom’s calculations. That increase reflects a combination of rebounding travel demand, changing work patterns, and growing stress on urban infrastructure worldwide. In the most congested cities on the planet, drivers lost well over 150 hours a year to traffic, far exceeding even the worst U.S. cities.
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