Certain aspects of a method and system for time based wireless local area network (WLAN) scanning may include controlling scanning of a plurality of wireless access points in one or more WLANs by a WLAN station based on one or more factors comprising power consumed by the WLAN station based on the scanning, and/or a priority level of one or more media packets to be handled by the WLAN station. The information may be acquired for one or more of the plurality of wireless access points in one or more WLANs during the controlled scanning.