It can be used to purchase alcohol and enter 21+ clubs — but cannot be scanned and doesn't have your address listed upon it.
You can actually board a domestic flight without any ID at all, for example if you lost it before your trip. But you'll have to go through a manual identity verification process. That includes giving fingerprints and answering personal questions only you should know, like past addresses.
It takes around 30 minutes and if you don't answer correctly, you could be denied boarding. This process already existed before the Real ID requirement, but it used to be free. Now, you're forced to go through the same manual verification steps and pay $45 on top of it.
You're being treated the same as if you have no ID with you at all.
The last attempt I even had my report from the relevant CRA in front of me as a cheat-sheet, at their suggestion. They believed I’m me enough to hand me (a version of) my report and let me into my online account with them, but not enough to tell someone else that I’m me. Go figure.
(The trouble, I’m pretty sure, was that both times I encountered two “I have literally no idea what relevance any of the addresses you named have to me” answers and I think they only put one of those in each set. Even reading the sheet I never managed to figure out WTF they were talking about. One I got both times, which I suppose was the one I was supposed to know, didn’t even name a state I had lived or owned property in. But nothing about it on the report, so what do I dispute? Luckily I only needed it for a temporary rental and that ended up working out fine—it’s way easier to buy houses than rent one, I guess, which is pretty weird)
Cue notarized paperwork with witnesses sent certified mail. Verification code sent back via regular post.
Weeks later, we can do the power of attorney but one of us needs to fly out. Required two additional witness for that. Five signatures on the same document. Had to call for updates to find out if it was accepted.
Getting the forms for this was non-trivial. You had to ask for them to be mailed or emailed.
I presented a student ID and was escorted through the security line. My baggage was selected for additional screening and I received a pat down search.
I went through an identical procedure on the return flight, right down to the exact words the TSA agent spoke to me while conducting the pat down.
They had me answer a series of questions about past addresses etc, it wasn't just an extra pat down in my case. After answering all the questions correctly they allowed me to continue.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46019205
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2025/11/21/tsa-securit...
[2] http://archive.today/2025.11.21-221013/https://www.washingto...
They're flat out telling you it's not about safety. It's merely about forcing total compliance. Which is almost certainly why the price was raised.
The real question is, since this is apparently also required to enter any federal facility, can I pay the $45 fee to enter those location as well? If not, then it's obvious what they're doing here.
That way anyone and everyone should be expected to have an ID and depriving someone of that ID or their use of real ID could be made a crime similar to unlawful detainment.
There's a manual verification process that has always existed for people who lost their ID before their flight, it used to be free, now you need to do that and pay $45 for it.
The system is interesting that the 2 branches of government responsible for doing things are often in a state of open conflict and the main job requirement of the judiciary seems to be an ability to maliciously misinterpret the law in a way which most benefits the group who appointed them.
Like this doesn’t actually matter, at all, for security purposes. Which is why nobody’s cared enough to make it go faster.
Of course, they didn't really care about it because it's mostly just security theater and thus the fed was never going to start turning people away simply for not having a compliant ID (which is still true). If there were much more valid reasons for why everybody needs to have a Real ID then states would have put more effort into getting everybody to have one.
There's also the separate the issue that the Real ID rules are questionable and it's not always easy for someone to get a Real ID even if they want one.
For this specific regulation, it's illegal to prevent someone who passes physical security screening and has paid their fare from boarding a plane.
So, if FedGov didn't provide a mechanism that they could point to that technically doesn't require passengers to present ID to board domestic fights, then they're still technically compliant with the law.
That's why TSA hasn't been able to just say "Fuck you, you don't get to fly if you don't have a federally-issued internal passport.".
Cite? Not that I'm doubting, just never heard this mentioned during the last news cycle around REAL ID when it "went in to effect" months ago. I didn't really look in to it any further as I've had a compliant ID for long enough it expires next year plus a passport so it didn't affect me.
Well, it’s a big country that is really kind of like 50 different smaller countries that do a lot of important things in a common manner but also do a lot of other things in very different ways. It’s hard to get all 50 states to move in the same direction.
In many countries a declaration that you have no id card will be met with a blank stare by most people. In the UK it's one of the most politically toxic ideas imaginable. So extra points to the Starmer government for making it exponentially worse by proposing it be mandatory AND digital. We already have cheap passports, licenses and national insurance numbers, so i cannot think of a single way this measure will improve our lives. A consideration which is completely alien to Starmer and co, who can't understand why people are so stupid to prefer the "fascist" narrative over theirs.
Someone jump in if I've missed a crucial detail, but I don't think it's comparable to the digital ID thing of pulling in disparate systems or being easily scanned from an app or what have you.
But previously: The individual States all issued IDs themselves. They each made up their own rules about who could and could not get one. They didn't necessarily share this information with the federal government, and citizenship wasn't necessarily a requirement at all to get a state ID such as a driver's license.
But Real ID is not that. It broadly requires proof of citizenship[1] or lawful status in order to obtain one.
So, for example: As a native-born US citizen, that's a new requirement for me -- nothing else I've ever done in life has required me to prove my citizenship. I've had a state-issued driver's license for decades. I've had mortgages, paid taxes, and lead a fairly productive life without citizenship status ever being a concern. But I don't presently have enough documentation to prove the citizenship that I've always had, so no flying for me (for now -- I'll have to get that sorted sooner or later).
[1]: There are some exceptions. https://www.tsa.gov/real-id/real-id-faqs
Unless you're really young (under 16 or so) and/or never had a job that paid wages, you've "proved" your citizenship (well, more specifically your right to work in the US which, in your case, adds up to the same thing) by filling out an IRS W9 form[0], which is required for any jobs which pays wages (whether that be hourly wages or a straight salary) by certifying -- under penalty of perjury if you lie -- that you're either a citizen or otherwise allowed to work in the US.[1]
I'm guessing you've "proven" your citizenship (or at least your legal presence/right to work in the US) at least once and likely (depending on how many employers you've had) more often.[3]
[0] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf
[1] No, this isn't specifically a test of citizenship, especially since non-citizen legal residents are also eligible to obtain RealID documents[2].
[2] https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dmv/driver-services/real-id/real...
[3] Please note that I'm absolutely not playing "gotcha" here. Rather, I'm pointing out that although we don't have Federal ID cards (although a passport certainly is that, and you Taxpayer ID Number -- usually your Social Security number -- are, in fact, Federal IDs) and RealID isn't a "Federal" ID. It's an "enhanced" (i.e., specific and often additional information specified by the Federal government is required to be submitted to your state of residence's licensing authority (usually the state Department of Motor Vehicles). As such, it's not actually a Federal ID, but a state ID with standardized requirements for verification across the US.
And yes, I agree. On multiple occasions in my adult life, I've "proved" my citizenship under threat of perjury, but that is only to say: I've made a statement on a form with my signature on it. My word alone was ~enough.
But to get a Real ID, my word alone isn't adequate: I have to prove my citizenship by presenting documentation.
In my home state of Ohio, that proof requires me to show up at the BMV and provide documentation[1] showing five different elements:
1 - Full Legal Name
2 - Date of Birth
3 - Legal Presence in US
4 - Social Security Number;
5 - Ohio Street Address
...and most of this is easy-enough.
But element 3, legal presence, is a bit tougher. There's a number of documents that are accepted, but only one of them is applicable to a plain-Jane native-born-Ohioan who does not have a passport.
That document is an original birth certificate, or a certified copy of one.
I don't have that. I have a copy, but it's just a copy. It is a copy that was made by the city's Health Department and it is on the fancy green cardstock they use, but it's still just a copy and this just-a-copy is not a certified copy. (I know this, because when I got that copy decades ago to join the military, they asked if I wanted a certified copy at extra expense and I said "No." This not-certified copy that I have was plenty good-enough to enlist, serve, and get paid in the US Armed Forces -- but it's not good enough for a Real ID. My original DD214 is also not good enough.)
Accordingly, I'll have to make a trip to my hometown and again pay them some money for a copy, with some extra money on top for whatever it is that it means for that copy to be "certified."
And then, I'll be able to go to the BMV and pay them more money too, and get a new ID mailed to me eventually that will re-enable me to fly on domestic commercial flights without fuckery.
(It's all rather amazing to me.)
[1]: https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/upload/publicsafety.ohio.g...
If you already have a passport, no verification is required.
Or: How does one even begin looking into this kind of [non] arrangement?
(AFAIK, I'm not necessarily privy to the details of the dealings my state has with the federal government. I'd love to know where to look to see that kind of thing.)
In Ohio, you could show them a birth certificate and Social Security card and a few minutes later have a freshly printed ID.
If you got your hands on the blank ID cards and a standard commercial card printer, you could make fake IDs all day.
If I'm going to get a damn passport, I'm going to get a passport that lets me leave the country.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_identity_card...
While the US government issues documents that work for identification everywhere (called passports) approximately nobody living in the US actually has a passport.
So when planes began to be attacked by bad guys some decades ago, the aviation industry (regulated at the federal level, because it doesn't take long to fly out of the state you start in) decided to use the identification document that everyone does have: the drivers license.
But those are issued by the states, not the federal government.
And the states don't all do a great job of the surveillance state stuff, so it's pretty easy for a budding Mr Terrorist to get a drivers license, and for his state to not bother keeping much in the way of records to find him if he ever hijacks a plane.
The solution to this falls under the category of the US "trying everything before they get it right" -- the federal government (via congress) decided that only drivers licenses issued by states that get the surveillance stuff right to their satisfaction would be usable to get on a plane (passport always worked and still works, fwiw).
Some states said "ok, that's fine". Some states said "nope, not doing it". <insert years of wrangling> The final solution was that the "not doin it" states were told they could issue two kinds of drivers license (real-id and...un-real-id).
Since you have to explicitly request a real-id license in those states, which costs more, and because people are lazy and ill-informed, there are still people with no valid id document to get on a plane.
So now we get to the present day where the solution to that problem is to not let them on the plane. Oh...wait, no, the solution is to charge them $45.
This isn't true. Over half of US citizens have passports https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/about-us/reports-...
Currently only Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington offer enhanced driver's licenses, which also function as Real ID driver's licenses.
Two decades ago in my country there was also two form of ID/passports existing at the same time. The old one and the new one which had bio-metric data and a computer chip. The new did create a new privacy issue in that you had to give away bio-metric data which the old one did not have. Is that what we are talking about for real vs unreal id?
Some of us still remember how internal checkpoints and the demands for government-issued traveling papers were used in some countries to restrict the travel of and collect persons of interest. The fact that we didn't go "Papers, please!" to folks traveling within the country was once a point of pride. You're suggesting that everyone who wishes to cross the country in less than a week must be in possession of Federal identification papers. [0] You do understand that it's totally legal to have zero identifying documentation other than your boarding pass, right?
Exactly one thing prevented (and prevents) another 9/11: reinforced cockpit doors that lock from inside the cockpit. Everything else that has been done is extremely expensive theater that wastes our time and energy, and empowers authoritarians.
[0] Ubiquitous computerized systems and internetworking means that traveling papers no longer need to be handed out to the traveler. If someone's either of interest or banned there's no need to notify them, you can just snatch them up at (or turn them away from) the checkpoint.
AIUI, these folks were armed with box cutters and a willingness to kill themselves, everyone on the plane, and everyone in the building they intended to crash into. Folks regularly get knives through TSA screening. There have been numerous official reports about the fact that TSA failed to find > 90% of the weapons and explosives federal red-team employees put into their luggage.
The only thing that has stopped another 9/11 is reinforced cockpit doors that lock from inside the cockpit. Had the cockpit doors been solid and locked, those hijackers would have gotten the shit beaten out of them by passengers and those planes would have made safe emergency landings.
Before 9/11, hijackings were pretty survivable events, but your best bet for survival was to cooperate and wait it out.
The 9/11 hijackers cashed in that history all at once. Now people know their best chance of survival is to fight back as hard as they can.
I almost get the sense you aren't a US citizen.