As of 2011, the list contained about 10,000 names. In 2012, the list more than doubled in size, to about 21,000 names. In August 2013, a leak revealed that more than 47,000 people were on the list. In 2016, California Senator Dianne Feinstein disclosed that 81,000 people were on the No Fly List.

As of early 2026, the exact number of individuals on the U.S. No Fly List remains classified for national security reasons, but it is estimated to contain between 80,000 and 100,000 names. This list is a subset of the much larger Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS), which contains over 1.5 million people. In 2026, the list has faced renewed scrutiny and expansion due to updated security protocols following recent global geopolitical shifts. It is important to distinguish the official No Fly List—which bars individuals from boarding any commercial aircraft flying into, out of, or over the United States—from "Internal Airline No Fly Lists." The latter are managed by individual carriers like Delta or United and often include thousands of passengers banned for unruly behavior or "air rage" incidents. For the general public, the primary way to know if they are on the federal list is by being denied a boarding pass at the airport, at which point they must go through the DHS TRIP redress process to resolve potential cases of mistaken identity.