The Department of Homeland Security announced on Monday that it has extended the deadline for requesting a genuine ID for air travelers and has moved the start date from May 3, 2023 to May 7, 2025.
The extension gives states more time to ensure residents have driver’s licenses and IDs that meet the improved safety standards of the Real ID Act. Efforts to provide these passes were “significantly hampered because state driver licensing authorities had to overcome the backlogs created by the pandemic,” DHS said in a press release.
The deadline for the new IDs has already been extended earlier. While the time extensions in the past were due to the state not fully meeting the requirements for issuing the safer driving licenses, the deadline was pushed back from October 2021 to next May, officials said at the time because the pandemic had made it difficult for people to get into state motor vehicle departments to get the new passes.
Chaos shakes the introduction of Real ID driving licenses, which will soon be required to board airplanes
When the enforcement period finally starts in spring 2015, the Transportation Security Administration will no longer be able to accept non-compliant IDs from travelers aged 18 and over for domestic flights, the department said.
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DHS is working with states to meet requirements and “will also use this time to implement innovations to make the process more efficient and accessible,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in the press release.