For more than twenty years, we’ve seen a never-ending succession of lawless empty threats made by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — amplified by airlines, airport operators,  and state driver licensing agencies — to prevent ticketed airline passengers from exercising their right to travel by common carrier if they don’t have or show ID or show state-issued IDs not certified by the DHS as “compliant” with the Federal REAL-ID Act of 2005.

To date, none of these threats have been carried out.

Now the TSA is threatening, yet again unlawfully, that starting February 1, 2025 it will prevent any traveler from passing through a TSA or TSA-contractor checkpoint at a US airport with no ID or “non-compliant” ID unless they (1) pay an illegal $45 per person fee and (2) submit to as-yet undisclosed new “identity verification” procedures that are likely to include illegal demands for additional personal information.

What will happen on February 1st  if you try to fly without ID, or without REAL-ID, and without paying the $45 fee or answering more questions? Will the TSA stop you from flying? If so, how can you challenge the TSA’s denial of your right to travel?

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. But the last time the TSA made threats like these, it backed off — yet again.

For several years, the TSA threatened that as of May 7, 2025, it would begin “enforcing” REAL-ID Act “requirements” for ID to fly.

What the TSA actually did on May 7, 2025, and after was not to require REAL-ID or any ID, but to begin subjecting some travelers with “noncompliant” ID to the same additional groping as travelers who show no ID, are on the TSA’s Islamophobic “selectee” blacklist, or are otherwise selected for more intrusive search of their person and carry-on possessions.  Since then, an average of 200,000 people a day have continued to fly without REAL-ID.

Previous administrations, under both Democrats and Republicans, have hesitated to cause chaos at airports and political backlash by having the TSA start turning back ticketed travelers. Those currently in charge of the DHS don’t appear to have the same inhibitions about using force against innocent citizens or disrupting public spaces. And they seem to believe that stopping people without REAL-ID from flying will stop “illegal aliens” from flying, even though any foreign passport is considered “compliant” with the REAL-ID Act (as is a US passport or passport card) and valid for air travel regardless of the passport holder’s US immigration status.

It seems likely that as of February 1, if you don’t show REAL-ID and don’t pay the $45 fee that the TSA is already collecting, you’ll be stopped by the “document checker” at the entrance to the TSA checkpoint. If you don’t get out of the way of the line when they tell you, “You can’t fly today without paying the fee”, or if you try to proceed without showing ID, you’ll probably be arrested by local police, charged with some trumped-up violation of local law, and/or assessed a civil penalty by the TSA.

If you pay the fee, you might be subjected to the same procedure the TSA has used for years for flyers without ID, which sometimes (seemingly at the discretion of the Federal Security Director or their designee in charge of the checkpoint staff at that airport) includes demanding that you complete the unapproved and illegal TSA Form 415 and answer a selection of  unapproved and illegal questions about what information is in the file about you maintained by a commercial data broker, the Accurint division of Lexis-Nexis.

Or the TSA could start subjecting travelers without ID to some new or modified “identity verification” process involving a different unapproved and illegal collection of information

Once you have entered the checkpoint, if you refuse to do whatever the checkpoint staff tell you to do, they will probably call local police stationed at the airport to escort  you out of the airport (or possibly arrest you), and are likely to assess a civil penalty against you.

As we’ve noted in other contexts, you can’t count on your rights being respected. TSA checkpoint staff  have de facto power, whether or not they have lawful authority. They won’t hesitate to call on local police to help enforce their illegal orders, and police will often wield force first and make up legal pretexts for doing so after the fact.

It’s hard to predict the behavior of an agency with no respect for the rule of law.

We can’t say, “These are the rules”, because there are no rules, at least none that the TSA acknowledges. No law requires travelers to show ID or answer questions from the TSA. The TSA has published no regulations, has provided none of the notices, and has obtained none of the approvals required by law for its current or any new “ID verification” scheme.

The real “rules” applicable to airline travel are international human rights treaties ratified by the US, Constitutional rights including the 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendments, and Federal laws governing common carrier airlines and “the public right of transit” by air.  But the TSA has never acknowledged these as applying to its ID demands and questioning of travelers.

If you have a valid ticket, you have the right to board your flight as long as you submit to an administrative search for weapons, explosives, or other objects that pose a threat to the safety of the flight. See our FAQs on “Your rights at the airport” and “Your rights as a U.S. citizen“.

The demand for REAL-ID or for any ID, the $45 fee, and any demand to fill out an additional unapproved form without an OMB Control Number or answer additional questions are all illegal. The Paperwork Reduction (PRA), 44 U.S.Code §3512, provides a “complete defense” against any penalty for failing to respond to any collection of information  by a Federal agency that hasn’t been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), isn’t accompanied by a valid PRA notice,  or doesn’t display a valid OMB Control Number.

It may be difficult or impossible for an individual to get a court to rule on the legality of the TSA’s denial of your right to travel without ID and without paying an illegal fee except in defense against criminal charges and/or an administrative fine.  A state government might be able to challenge these illegal demands with less personal risk, especially if the TSA discriminates against some state-issued credentials in favor of others in deciding who to allow to exercise their right to travel by Federally licensed interstate common carrier.

For more on your rights and what might happen if you try to exercise them, see the section of our earlier explainer on the $45 fee, “What will happen if I say no?“, and our FAQ, “What can you do if you aren’t allowed to fly without REAL-ID“. If you try to fly without ID, without REAL-ID, and/or without paying the $45 fee on February 1 or after, please let us know what happens so we can compile reports and tell others what to expect.

This isn’t advice from an attorney, and we aren’t able to provide legal representation. But we believe that those who stand up to the lawlessness of the TSA deserve the best possible legal defense. If you are an attorney or with a law firm or organization that might be willing to take referrals or provide legal assistance to those who stand up for their rights, please get in touch.