The deadline for Americans to get a Real ID was first set for 2008, but has been repeatedly delayed.
On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security moved the deadline again. It’s now May 7, 2025. The department said that the Covid-19 pandemic has slowed down the adoption of the higher-security ID requirements that travelers will need to have to enter some federal facilities, and to fly on large commercial planes.
Homeland Security said motor vehicle agencies need more time to work through the backlog of applications created when state agencies curtailed services as a precaution during the Covid pandemic.
“This extension will give states needed time to ensure their residents can obtain a Real ID-compliant license or identification card,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Monday. “DHS will also use this time to implement innovations to make the process more efficient and accessible. We will continue to ensure that the American public can travel safely.”
The Real ID Act passed Congress in 2005. It creates federal security standards for drivers licenses, state identifications, and other identification cards issued by the states and was a response to the increase of terrorist attacks on American facilities, including the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack by Al Qaeda terrorists who boarded commercial planes, hijacked them, and used them as missiles to destroy the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York, and crashed a jet into the Pentagon itself.
Real IDs have a star in the right-hand corner of a driver’s license or identification card. U.S. passports or green card qualify as Real IDs for those who don’t have a Real ID-compliant drivers license or state identification card. Alaska’s Real ID information page is located here. It has not been updated to reflect the new deadline, as of this writing.
As of May, 2022, some 137 million Real IDs had been issued across the states, about 49% of all IDs in circulation.
