Have you taken Xanax recently and are wondering how long it’ll be before you can pass a drug test? How long does Xanax stay in your system? What’s the half life of Xanax? How long after taking Xanax will you be able to pass a drug test? Is there anything you can do to pass your drug test faster? We answer all those questions and more in this guide to everything you need to know about how long Xanax stays in your system.
What Is Xanax?
Xanax is a brand name of the drug alprazolam, which is used to treat anxiety and panic disorders. Xanax is a benzodiazepine (often called “benzos”), a class of psychotropic drugs commonly prescribed to treat anxiety. Benzos work by reducing the activity of neurons in the brain that cause stress and anxiety. Some people also take Xanax recreationally to relieve anxiety without a prescription or for the relaxing “high” feeling it can give users.
How Long Does Xanax Stay in Your System?
How long does Xanax stay in your system? You’ll begin to feel the effects of Xanax about 15 to 30 minutes after taking it, with peak effects about two hours after taking the drug. Xanax’s effects should last about four to six hours. But how long does a Xanax stay in your system? The half life of Xanax is about 11.2 hours, which means, after this time, about half the Xanax you originally took will have been metabolized and removed from your system, and about half will still be in your system. Exactly how long Xanax stays in your system depends on multiple factors, which we discuss more in the next section.
In the chart below, you can see how long detectable levels of Xanax remain for four different drug tests.
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Test
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How Long Detectable Levels Remain
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Blood
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1 day |
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Saliva
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2-3 days |
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Urine
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3-4 days |
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Hair
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Up to 30 days
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The most common way to test for Xanax is a urine test. How long is Xanax in your urine? Detectable levels of Xanax remain in your urine until about four days after you last took the drug. You’ll pass blood and saliva tests for Xanax more quickly than urine tests, but Xanax can be detected in a hair follicle test up to a month after you last used the drug.
What Affects How Long Xanax Stays in Your System?
If you want to know “how long does a Xanax stay in your system?” it’s impossible to get an exact answer since it depends on multiple factors. We discuss the three most important of them in this section.
Your History of Using Benzos
The most important factor that affects how long Xanax stays in your system is if you have a history of using Xanax or other benzos. Benzos stay in the bodies longer of people who have used them heavily and/or for a long time. This is because heavy benzo use causes the drug to build up in your body so it takes longer for it to be completely removed from your system. If you’re a heavy benzo user, it could take a week or more for you to pass a urine test and several days to a week for you to pass blood or saliva tests.
How Much Xanax You Took
If you take a larger dose of Xanax, it’ll take longer for the drug to leave your system since your body can only metabolize it at a certain rate. A regular dose of Xanax ranges from .25mg to 2mg, and taking anything more than that at one time can increase the times in the chart above.
Your Metabolism
Your metabolism determines how quickly your body processes and removes substances, and the faster your metabolism is, the faster those substances, including Xanax, will be removed. Younger people generally have faster metabolisms than older people, and skinnier people generally have faster metabolisms than heavier people.
How Can You Get Xanax Out of Your System More Quickly?
What can you do if you’ve recently taken Xanax but need to pass a drug test soon? Unfortunately there’s no guaranteed way you can change the half life of Xanax or speed up how quickly your body metabolizes it. If you have a drug test coming up, the best way to pass it is to avoid Xanax for at least four days (and ideally a week, just to be safe) before the test.
However, you can try drinking more water (about 1-2 glass an hour) a day or two before your drug test to try and flush the Xanax out of your system faster. This isn’t guaranteed to work, but it can give your body the extra push it needs to help you pass your drug test a bit sooner than you normally would.
We don’t recommend any products that supposedly “guarantee” clean drug test results since many don’t work and some can even contain harmful ingredients. The best way to pass your drug test is to avoid Xanax for at least four days before the test.