The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has announced that it will begin “implementation of its REAL ID enforcement measures at TSA checkpoints nationwide” on May 7, 2025.

What does this mean if you want to fly but don’t have any of the types of ID that the TSA deems compliant with the REAL-ID Act (including a US or foreign passport, a US passport card, a Canadian driver’s license, or a US driver’s license or state ID with a REAL-ID gold star in the upper right corner or that is marked as an “Enhanced Drivers License”)?

The key thing to know is that — unless the TSA makes undisclosed changes to its procedures — air travelers with “noncompliant” ID on or after May 7, 2025, should be treated, and should be allowed to fly, the same way people with no ID fly today.

We can’t predict with certainty what the TSA will do on May 7th, because:

1. The TSA has been violating the law for years with its ID procedures at airports, including through illegal demands for ID, illegal demands for information, and illegal use of an unapproved ID verification form.
2. No laws or regulations prescribe the TSA’s checkpoint procedures, including ID checks. The law says only that airline passengers must “submit” to “screening”, without defining either of those terms. Courts have defined “screening” as “search”, with not indication that this includes questioning about, or evidence of, identity.
3. The TSA has claimed that its internal “Standard Operating Procedures” (SOPs) for ID checks, before or after May 7, 2025, aren’t binding on the TSA, create no legal rights for airline passengers, and can be secretly changed at any time.
4. The SOPs purport to grant discretion to TSA staff at each airport to decide who to allow, and who not to allow, to exercise their right to airline travel by common carrier, for any or no reason, regardless of what if any ID travelers show.
5. The TSA has purported to grant itself the authority to change even its published “rules” at any time, without notice, merely by posting new non-rules on its website. It hasn’t done so yet, nor has it published any of the other notices in the Federal Register that would be required by the Privacy Act and the Paperwork Reduction Act to establish a “graduated enforcement” scheme, but it might try to so so at any time.
6. The Trump 2.0 Administration in general and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in particular have been changing and sometimes reversing their directives in many other areas, without warning and with little or no basis in law or overall policy, and could do the same with directives to the TSA.

With these uncertainties in mind, what can we say about what will be required and will happen at airports on May 7th?

Does the law require you to have ID to fly?

No.

The TSA itself has stated repeatedly in court, under oath, in litigation in which The Identity Project and individuals we support have been involved, that no Federal law or regulation requires airline passengers to have, carry, or show any ID.

See e.g. State of New Mexico v. Phillip Mocek, in which a TSA witness testified that, “It [flying without ID] happens all the time. We have a procedure for that”, and Gilmore v. Gonzales, in which the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found, based on the TSA’s own submissions to the court, that, “Gilmore had a meaningful choice. He could have presented identification, submitted to a search, or left the airport. That he chose the latter does not detract from the fact that he could have boarded the airplane had he chosen one of the other two options.”

People fly without ID every day, openly and legally.

Years-delayed responses by the TSA  to our Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests show that, as of 2016, almost 2,000 people a day were allowed through TSA checkpoints at airports nationwide with no ID or with ID that was deemed “unacceptable”. TSA incident logs released in response to our FOIA requests show that 98% of travelers who showed up at airports with no ID or with “unacceptable” ID were allowed to fly after undergoing additional questioning and/or more intrusive searches and groping (“screening”).

Will the REAL-ID Act require you to have ID to fly on or after May 7, 2025?

No.

The REAL-ID Act governs which IDs can be accepted by Federal agencies such as the TSA in circumstances where ID is required. It doesn’t create any new requirements to have, carry, or show any ID in circumstances — such as airline travel — where ID is not required by some other law.

According to the latest TSA statement on April 11, 2025:

Passengers who present a state-issued identification that is not REAL ID compliant and who do not have another acceptable alternative (e.g., passport) can expect to face delays, additional screening and the possibility of not being permitted into the security checkpoint…. TSA … will continue with additional screening measures for those without a REAL ID until it is no longer considered a security vulnerability.

This doesn’t say that individuals without REAL-ID, or without any ID, will be prevented from flying. All it says is that these individuals will be subjected to “additional screening” (which of course may occasion delay) and the “possibility” of not being permitted into the checkpoint (i.e. if they don’t agree to submit to additional searches).

What will happen if you show up at the airport on or after May 7, 2025, with “noncompliant” state-issued ID?

So far as we can tell, airline passengers who show up at TSA checkpoints on or after May 7, 2025,  with noncompliant ID or no ID will be treated the same way  travelers with “unacceptable” ID (expired IDs, student IDs, IDs issued by private employers, etc.) or no ID at all (lost or stolen or forgotten or just don’t have ID) are treated now.

What is the TSA’s standard procedure for people with no ID or “unacceptable” ID?

We don’t have up-to-date, unredacted versions of the TSA’s instructions to checkpoint staff at airports. But based on previously-released versions of the TSA’s Standard Operating Procedures(SOPs)  for Travel Document and ID Checks and for the TSA’s ID Verification Call Center (IVCC), TSA testimony and pleading in court cases, TSA ID verification logs and incident reports released in response to our FOIA requests, reports we’ve received from travelers without ID, and our own experiences, here’s what happens when a ticketed airline passenger shows up at a TSA checkpoint with no ID or “unacceptable” ID:

First, checkpoint staff (typically a TSA supervisor) ask the traveler if they have any other ID: Employee ID? School ID (student, faculty, or staff)? Costco shopper card with a photo on it? Library card, credit cards, frequent flyer cards, etc., even without photo? Social Security, Medicare, or health insurance cards? AAA card? What have you got in your wallet?

If any or all of these IDs are sufficient to satisfy the TSA staff of the traveler’s identity, they will be allowed to proceed with an “SSSS” on their boarding pass as a “selectee” for additional “screening” (more intrusive searches).

The TSA may or may not, in these cases, demand that the traveler fill out and sign TSA Form 415, “Certification of Identity“, as discussed further below.

What assortment  of “unacceptable” ID and/or other documents is ultimately acceptable appears to be at the arbitrary discretion of TSA staff on duty at the airport.

Second, if TSA staff remain unsatisfied with a traveler’s ID, or a traveler has no ID at all, a TSA staff person will call the TSA’s ID Verification Call Center (IVCC), and relay a series of questions based on the file about the traveler maintained by a commercial data broker, the Accurint division of Lexis Nexis, and possibly other databases. See this article for some of the questions that have been asked, as indicated in responses to our FOIA requests.

If the TSA is satisfied with the answers (i.e. if what the traveler says matches what Accurint thinks it knows about them, which may or may not be accurate), the TSA will require the traveler to complete and sign TSA Form 415, and then allow them to proceed as a “selectee”.

TSA Form 415 is unapproved, and its use violates the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). To the extent that the same question has been asked of ten or more people by the IVCC, which makes it a “collection of information” under the PRA, that questioning is similarly illegal.

Neither any use of Form 415 nor the collection of answers to standardized questions from the IVCC has been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as is required by the PRA for any collection of information from members of the public.

The TSA has twice, under the Obama and Trump 1.0 Administrations, given notice of plans to seek approval from OMB for Form 415. These notices have been premised on the false assumption that ID is required by law to fly. Each time, the TSA has abandoned its plan to request approval of Form 415, without submitting it to OMB, after The Identity Project and others objected that the proposals were contrary to existing laws and Constitutional rights.

The PRA prohibits any Federal agency from imposing sanctions for declining to fill out an unapproved form or respond to an unapproved verbal collection of information, and makes lack of OMB approval an absolute defense against any attempt to impose such sanctions.

This has not yet been litigated, however, in relation to TSA Form 415, questioning by the TSA’s IVCC, or denial of passage through a TSA checkpoint as a sanction. The PRA does have legal teeth, though.Failure to comply with the PRA when changing the application forms for US passports was one of the reasons for the issuance of an initial court order directing the State Department to issue passports using the old (approved) forms, not the new (unapproved) forms, to transgender and non-binary plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit.

In practice, if a traveler declines to complete and sign Form 415 if asked to do so, the TSA and/or its contractors will prevent them from passing through the checkpoint.

Third, if the TSA staff including the checkpoint supervisor are unsure whether to allow a traveler to proceed after calling the IVCC, they can refer the decision to the Federal Security Director (FSD) or their designee on duty. The FSD for each airport is in charge of all TSA staff and contractors at the airport, and has a designee on duty whenever a checkpoint is open.

Depending on the circumstances and the size of the airport, the FSD may already be near the checkpoint, or may be called over earlier in the process.

A traveler who is being turned away at a checkpoint could ask that the FSD be called, but we’ve seen no indication of any formal policy or procedure for appeal of decisions to the FSD. It does appear, however, that the TSA has purported to delegate to the FSD or their designee on duty entirely arbitrary and nonreviewable discretion to decide which ticket holders to allow to exercise their right to airline travel by common carrier.

If the TSA decides not to allow a traveler to fly, and they decline to leave, the TSA will call local law enforcement officers. The police response is unpredictable but will usually include, at a minimum, (1) detaining the would-be traveler for questioning, (2) running a check on them in the FBI’s NCIC criminal records database for arrest warrants, and (3) if the TSA won’t let them pass through the checkpoint, ordering them to leave the airport or be arrested. Sometimes the report from NCIC, relayed by the police to the TSA, is considered sufficient ID verification for the TSA to change its mind and allow the traveler to proceed!

We’ll have more information in a follow-up article about what to do if you have a valid airline ticket but the TSA refuses to allow you through the checkpoint to board your flight.

Fourth, once any ID checks are complete, anyone who didn’t present “acceptable” ID (presumably including, as of May 7, 2025, anyone presenting “noncompliant” ID) is flagged as a “selectee” and subjected to more intrusive groping and search of their person and carry-on baggage.

What else might the TSA do to people who show up at airports with “noncompliant” ID or no ID?

A major uncertainty is whether the TSA will use the pretext of REAL-ID Act enforcement to begin checking airline passengers with noncompliant state-issued IDs against criminal and/or immigration records.

To date, so far as we can tell, this hasn’t happened, but it could happen on or after May 7th.

Arrest warrants are routinely and summarily issued and reported to NCIC for even minor reasons, such as failing to appear for a hearing for a traffic violation. Often, the underlying case is settled or dismissed, without that fact being reported to NCIC. The result is that there are many millions of erroneous records in NCIC  wrongly identifying individuals as subject to arrest.

This is why, when DOGE or some other agency recently tried to match NCIC records against records of outstanding student visas, they wrongly identified many foreign students as having “criminal records” and being subject to arrest, cancellation of their visas, and deportation, when they hadn’t actually been convicted of any crime.

There are also large numbers of individuals shown in US immigration records — rightly or wrongly — as subject to removal for other reasons.

If the TSA were checking either arrest records or immigration records, hundreds of people would be arrested every day at TSA checkpoints. This isn’t happening. The reality is that thousands of people subject to arrest warrants and/or immigration removal orders, or rightly or wrongly identified as such in NCIC and/or immigration records, fly every day. It’s apparent that the TSA is not (yet) checking airline passengers systematically against these databases.

This isn’t a problem. It’s a feature of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, not a bug. Exercising your right to travel is not a lawful basis for detention, interrogation, or a warrant check. Failing to show up in court for a hearing on a traffic violation or other petty offense, or failure to pay a minor fine on time, doesn’t mean you pose a danger to aviation.

We’ve been hearing credible rumors and receiving tips from whistleblowers for years, however, that the TSA is eager to start checking all airline passengers against NCIC. This hasn’t happened, in part, because agency insiders have objected that it would be illegal.

The same thing is likely true with respect to immigration records.  But to date, if you show a valid foreign passport at a TSA checkpoint, the TSA doesn’t check your immigration status.

The DHS is reportedly trying to justify enforcement of the REAL-ID Act at airports as a way to stop “illegal aliens” from flying. This would make sense, even partially, only if the TSA plans to start checking airline passengers’ immigration status as part of some (illegal) new procedure for air travelers without REAL-ID. This might be combined with checks against NCIC, although that would raise different legal issues.

Checks for arrest warrants and/or immigration detainers could be done by the TSA itself, as part of its algorithmic processing to decide, based on airline reservations and other data, what Boarding Pass Printing Result (BPRR) to send the airline for each passenger.

Or, perhaps more likely in the context of a set of changes explained as part of “REAL-ID Act enforcement”, the IVCC could start checking NCIC and/or immigration records for some or all of the airline passengers with noncompliant state-issued ID or no ID.

Or immigration officers or local police deputized as such could be stationed at some TSA checkpoints to confront and question passengers waiting for ID verification.

We won’t know until May 7th, when we’ll see whether there is a sudden surge in immigration seizures and/or arrests for old criminal warrants at TSA checkpoints.

What else don’t we know about what will happen at TSA checkpoints on May 7, 2025, and after?

We don’t know how long the lines and delays will be for air travelers without REAL-ID, or how much these long lines and delays may spill over to impact all air travelers, even those with compliant ID.

This will depend, in significant part, on whether none, some, or all of those with noncompliant state-issued IDs will be allowed to travel as long as they show some other ID to confirm their noncompliant ID, or whether they are put through the IVCC questioning process., which takes more time for both travelers and TSA staff and contractors.

FSDs and lower-level TSA staff may or may not have been given instructions on this, or it may have been left to their discretion. In the latter case, lines and delays could vary from day to day, time to time, and airport to airport.

If every air traveler with noncompliant state-issued ID is required to go through the IVCC questioning procedures, it will overload both TSA staff at checkpoints and the IVCC. If this happens, the capacity of the IVCC will be the limiting factor unless the staff of the IVCC has been expanded dramatically — of which there has been no publicly visible sign.

Travelers without REAL-ID might have to wait many hours for TSA staff at airports to get their ID verification calls through to the overloaded IVCC. In such a  scenario, many ticketed travelers will miss their flights.

Another unknown is how airlines will deal with these passengers, including whether they will be given refunds or  charged rebooking fees. Airline customer service counters and call centers are also likely to be overloaded with people who missed their flights, or realized that they are going to miss them, trying to cancel or change their reservations.

You shouldn’t be prevented from flying if you don’t have a REAL-ID compliant document, but you should be prepared for the possibility of long lines, long delays, and missing your flight.

We’ll have more in a follow-up article about what to do if that happens.