TSA Shares Plan for Travelers Without REAL ID

UPDATE: Turns out the TSA will ask for a bit more than $18 to verify your identity if you arrive at the airport without a REAL ID or other compatible identification. On December 1, Christine Chung of The New York Times reported that the TSA would implement a higher fee than expected: $45 per person, to be exact. The new fee is set to go into effect on February 1, 2026.

You can’t say there hasn’t been advance notice. The TSA spent plenty of time — and plenty of airport signage — reminding air travelers that they needed to have either REAL ID-compatible identification or a U.S. passport with them when they fly domestically. As Kirk Miller noted earlier this year, this change has been a long time coming. The law that required REAL IDs dates back to 2005, and this measure was originally scheduled to go into effect in 2020.

Now, the U.S. government has revealed its plan for dealing with domestic travelers without a passport or REAL ID on their person who show up at an airport looking to fly. This week on the Federal Register, the TSA published a proposal for the “TSA Modernized Alternative Identity Verification User Fee” — essentially, a standardized method for handling would-be passengers who have tickets to fly without the necessary identification to do so.

The proposal states that this new process “may allow these individuals to gain access to the sterile area of an airport if TSA is able to establish their identity.” To that end, this document describes a method for the TSA to “use the individual’s biographic and/or biometric information” to make for a more streamlined process of verifying travelers’ identities. Elsewhere in the proposal, the TSA indicates that the biometric scan will cost $18.00 per traveler (see above for the actual new rate).

So You Don’t Have a REAL ID. Now What?

Enforcement of new identification standards for travel begins on Wednesday, but there are options for those who procrastinated

Travelers without a REAL ID or passport might still encounter trouble flying, even if they are willing to pony up $45. The TSA also states that the proposed new method of identity verification “does not guarantee that an individual’s identity will be verified or that the individual will be provided access to the sterile area of the airport” — and that people going through this process “may still be subject to additional screening or experience delays.”

According to the document, the fee will be valid for 10 days at a time, so if you’re traveling across the country with a return flight two weeks later, you would need to pay it twice. Or you could just get a REAL ID at your local DMV.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…