At long last, the deadline to get a REAL ID is here. On May 7th, after nearly two years of kicking the can down the road, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will finally require travelers to have REAL IDs — or other compliant forms of identification (more on that later) — to board domestic flights in the US. It’s safe to say that no one is ready for it. The TSA is bracing for chaos at airports, and DMV offices across the country are reporting lines out the door.
As of mid-April, 81 percent of people traveling through TSA checkpoints had REAL IDs or other forms of compliant identification, according to the agency. For the nearly one in five passengers who don’t, however, the enforcement of the May 7th deadline may come as a shock. The REAL ID Act passed in 2005 as part of the fervor over national security that swept the country in the wake of the September 11th attacks, and was supposed to be fully implemented by 2008. Seventeen years and numerous delays later, the deadline is finally here.
“People will experience travel delays,” Patricia Mancha, a TSA spokesperson, told CBS News in April. “People have had years to really plan for this, so TSA will simply enforce the laws and the rules as they apply.”
It’s true that people have had years — 20 of them, in fact — to prepare. But the deadline has been pushed back so many times that a reasonable person could’ve assumed it’d happen again. The initial 2008 deadline was delayed because of concerns over privacy and the cost of implementation.
“Most people have no idea what [the REAL ID Act] is about other than thinking of it as a mere inconvenience that they’re about to face in the Department of Motor Vehicles,” Udi Ofer, a former attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union, told Vox. “But when the law passed, there was an incredible ideological diversity in the voices of opposition.”
Where a regular driver’s license functions as proof of a person’s identity and residence in a particular state, REAL ID–compliant driver’s licenses also serve as proof of a person’s lawful status in the US.
Groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU, and the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute (AEI) have all opposed the REAL ID Act on the basis that it increases the government’s surveillance capabilities while doing nothing to protect national security. Critics say the REAL ID is effectively a national identification card, since it requires a national database that links each state’s individual records. The ACLU has warned that REAL IDs could “facilitate the tracking of data on individuals and bring government into the very center of every citizen’s life,” while the AEI has said the ID would “erode civil liberties for no effective gain.” And in the age of Trump, it’s also worth noting that undocumented immigrants can’t be issued REAL IDs, even in states where they’re otherwise able to obtain driver’s licenses. Given the overall noncompliance with the REAL ID Act even among US citizens, there’s no reason lacking a REAL ID would signal that someone is in the country without authorization — but the Trump administration’s zeal for deportations without due process, combined with the REAL ID’s implementation, still raises some alarm bells.
Despite the pushback from civil liberties groups, the delays were ultimately more about logistics than ideology. All 50 states didn’t even offer REAL IDs until September 2020, 15 years after the initial legislation went into effect. Congress pushed back the deadline three times since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, most recently in 2022, when it was delayed until May 2025 — which is now.
The chaos isn’t evenly spread across the country. A CBS News analysis found that a handful of states have near-total compliance with the REAL ID Act: Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Washington, DC. Five other states — Texas, Mississippi, Hawaii, Utah, and Vermont — have compliance rates above 90 percent.
Elsewhere in the country, people have been scrambling to get REAL IDs before the deadline. New Jersey has the lowest rate of compliance in the country, with just 17 percent of IDs issued by the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) being REAL IDs. People are reportedly driving across the state and waiting hours in line to get IDs before the deadline. “Everyone I know is fighting to get one,” one Jersey resident told The New York Times. “You can’t find any, at all.”
The state is reportedly issuing 23,000 REAL IDs per week and posting thousands of new appointments each morning, with some residents checking the DMV website at midnight to secure a slot. New Jersey also has an “emergency issuance program” for people traveling within 14 days for “life-or-death” reasons. Illinois, where two-thirds of residents don’t have REAL ID–compliant identification, is in a similar position. The Illinois DMV opened a REAL ID “super center” in Chicago, where 1,500 IDs are issued daily.
To get a REAL ID, you need documentation that shows your full legal name, date of birth, and Social Security number. You also need to provide two valid proofs of address and proof of your lawful status in the US. Unlike regular driver’s licenses, REAL IDs have a little gold or black star on the upper right corner. (In California, the symbol is a little bear with a star inside it.)
But all is not lost for travelers who still lack a REAL ID. The TSA will also accept passports, green cards, tribal IDs, valid military IDs, trusted traveler cards like Global Entry issued by the Department of Homeland Security, “enhanced” IDs or security cards issued by certain states, and other forms of identification. Travelers who don’t have any of the above will be subject to additional screenings.
“We have other ways to verify your identity if you don’t have a REAL ID or acceptable form of ID,” a TSA spokesperson said in a recent Ask Me Anything thread on Reddit, “but know that this process may take a considerable amount of time, so you’ll need to arrive at the airport early.”
In other words: expect long lines, chaos, and even more frustration and confusion than usual at TSA checkpoints on May 7th — and probably for a few months afterwards.
