4 ms·

US air travelers without REAL IDs will be charged a $45 fee

45 points by geox 11mo ago

ocdtrekkie 11mo ago
The funny thing is this "requirement" got pushed back nearly 20 years and still isn't actually required, but if they set this fee in 2008 it would've been done in 2008. In America you don't get it done by requiring it, you get it done by making it cost more if you don't do it.
- FridayoLeary 11mo ago
  What is it with America and laws being pushed off indefinitely? Do other countries have similar problems? 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.
  - shortrounddev2 11mo ago
    We have categorically lost our ability to change or enforce laws, and so while congress may pass a law, the followthrough is usually nonexistent
  - xienze 11mo ago
    > What is it with America and laws being pushed off indefinitely? Do other countries have similar problems? 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.
  - phantasmish 11mo ago
    It helps that this one was entirely pointless except for generating more contracts to hand to pals, like a lot of the stuff around that time—say, when they created Homeland Security rather than just beefing up existing structures that served similar purposes (easier to direct contracts to friends and companies you own large stakes in when you’re setting up a totally new department with an excuse to get all-new everything!) Like this doesn’t actually matter, at all, for security purposes. Which is why nobody’s cared enough to make it go faster.
  - simoncion 11mo ago
    > What is it with America and laws being pushed off indefinitely? 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.".
    - wolrah 11mo ago
      > For this specific regulation, it's illegal to prevent someone who passes physical security screening and has paid their fare from boarding a plane. 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.
      - OkayPhysicist 11mo ago
        Gilmore v. Gonzales (2006) sort of dealt with this. Dude wanted to fly, refused to present ID, refused the heightened security check, was told he couldn't fly. He sued, it went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that because the heightened security check was an option, the claimant's freedom of movement was not restricted. There's a bunch of case law about freedom of movement, which is pretty radically protected in the United States. Not only can the federal government not put up unreasonable impediments to interstate travel, individual states and even private companies can't, either. Since American's aren't required to have ID (interestingly, this might be more political than legal, I can't find any case law enshrining the right to not have ID, just a lot of public outcry and backpedaling any time it's suggested), requiring one to travel interstate would be a significant impediment.
  - DSMan195276 11mo ago
    In this case the problem is that the fed is the one who runs the TSA and created the Real ID rules, but the states are the ones that actually issue the IDs meeting those rules. The fed couldn't force the states to implement the rules and the states didn't want to spend money on something they didn't really care about. 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.
  - maxerickson 11mo ago
    There's 50 governments responsible for implementing this law. A few more I guess. Not 2 branches.
  - OkayPhysicist 11mo ago
    In this particular case, it's because Americans have somewhat unusual deep-seated distrust of our own government, which has lead to pretty well-organized opposition to any federally mandated form of identification. Officially, the only two real semi-universal lists of American citizens available to the federal government are A) Social Security numbers (which aren't ID, they're just a unique identifier, and aren't legally mandated, just incentivized), and B) The Selective Service Registry, which IS legally mandated, but only for fighting age men. (Fun fact: this is why American men still need to register for the draft, despite the US not having a draft since Vietnam. This registration does not suggest that the US is any closer to re-instating the draft than any other country that eliminated their draft, as it would still take an act of congress, just as most countries can reinstate their draft with an act of parliament. The reason we have to register is that officially, the federal government otherwise has no idea who is even eligible to be drafted).
- mjevans 11mo ago
  ID should be something the government provides to everyone "for free" (for taxes already paid, by all taxpayers). 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.
- wat10000 11mo ago
  Requiring it would get it done, they just haven’t actually required it. They said it was required, but in reality you can still get through without one, with some additional screening. No surprise that this has not been very effective.
- apple4ever 11mo ago
  Instead in many states it cost more for the REAL ID
- tuxracer 11mo ago
  It basically is required, because without it they're treating you the same as if you showed up to the airport with no ID at all. 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.
mouse_ 11mo ago
I'm to believe this is done for my safety, which is apparently worth $45
- 3eb7988a1663 11mo ago
  What is amazing is that a couple of weeks ago it was $18[0]. Yet what is really cooking my noodle is that the live site referenced from that post now says $45 [1]. Yet, if you check the waybackmachine the original article in fact said $18[2]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46019205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46019205 [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2025/11/21/tsa-security-fee-wrong-id/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2025/11/21/tsa-securit... [2] http://archive.today/2025.11.21-221013/https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2025/11/21/tsa-security-fee-wrong-id/ http://archive.today/2025.11.21-221013/https://www.washingto...
  - hedora 11mo ago
    The important thing is that, like the tariffs, this is not a tax on Americans.
    - downrightmike 11mo ago
      Fixed it: The important thing is that, like the tariffs, this is a tax on Americans.
      - stavros 11mo ago
        That was exactly the joke :(
        downrightmike 11mo ago
        Some people are extremely soft brained and don't believe it is a tax
- downrightmike 11mo ago
FridayoLeary 11mo ago
Is this the better Id system everyones been asking for? 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.
- nemomarx 11mo ago
  This is just the drivers license with I think slightly more photographing or background checking, and in a different database? And a fancy star hologram. 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.
  - givemeethekeys 11mo ago
    My guess is that it harmonizes federal and state records for identifying individuals.
    - kayodelycaon 11mo ago
      It’s definitely security related. Some states did barely any verification and didn’t have much protection against fake cards. 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.
      - givemeethekeys 11mo ago
        I imagine the more services are provided by an organization, the more that organization has to worry about who is receiving them.
dboreham 11mo ago
Background for the uninitiated: the USA is not quite a real country. It's 50 states that agreed to cooperate in various ways, and share a common army/navy. 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.
- rayiner 11mo ago
  Sounds great to me actually. I’m glad the states still have the leverage to do this.
- adgjlsfhk1 11mo ago
  > approximately nobody living in the US actually has a passport. This isn't true. Over half of US citizens have passports https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/about-us/reports-and-statistics.html?os=wtmbtqtajk9ya&ref=app https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/about-us/reports-...
qwertyuiop_ 11mo ago
Just use your passport!
- ProllyInfamous 11mo ago
  When you get a passport, get a Passport ID (wallet card) as well. It can be used to purchase alcohol and enter 21+ clubs — but cannot be scanned and doesn't have your address listed upon it.
- OkayPhysicist 11mo ago
  Okay, and what about the other half of Americans?
BrandoElFollito 11mo ago
At least you have something. In France you cannot fly without an id. Identity cards are free and you cannot really live without, you need to other your identity quite often. Sure, there are some convoluted ways to avoid that but it is a road paved with pain. It is like the ability to make z handwritten cheque. It is clearly described in the law but I wrote me to meet someone who wrote accept such a document. I guess the bank itself would be stunned.
daft_pink 11mo ago
It’s been a requirement forever and the truth is that many of the requirements were actually implemented by the stays decades ago for all ids and they keep pushing it back every year. It’s hard to feel sympathetic. It’s actually gracious of them to offer an alternative.
- nobody9999 11mo ago
  >It’s actually gracious of them to offer an alternative. I strongly disagree. The courts have repeatedly struck down limits on domestic travel over the past couple hundred years. In fact, the $45 "fee" is an acknowledgment that you aren't required to have special documents to travel within the US. Otherwise, they just wouldn't let you travel. So instead, they're making more security theater and punishing you if you don't comply with their demands. That's not "gracious," that's coercive. Edit: Fixed incorrect usage ("they'd" vs. "they").

45 points by geox 11mo ago

The funny thing is this "requirement" got pushed back nearly 20 years and still isn't actually required, but if they set this fee in 2008 it would've been done in 2008. In America you don't get it done by requiring it, you get it done by making it cost more if you don't do it.

FridayoLeary 11mo ago
What is it with America and laws being pushed off indefinitely? Do other countries have similar problems? 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.
- shortrounddev2 11mo ago
  We have categorically lost our ability to change or enforce laws, and so while congress may pass a law, the followthrough is usually nonexistent
- xienze 11mo ago
  > What is it with America and laws being pushed off indefinitely? Do other countries have similar problems? 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.
- phantasmish 11mo ago
  It helps that this one was entirely pointless except for generating more contracts to hand to pals, like a lot of the stuff around that time—say, when they created Homeland Security rather than just beefing up existing structures that served similar purposes (easier to direct contracts to friends and companies you own large stakes in when you’re setting up a totally new department with an excuse to get all-new everything!) Like this doesn’t actually matter, at all, for security purposes. Which is why nobody’s cared enough to make it go faster.
- simoncion 11mo ago
  > What is it with America and laws being pushed off indefinitely? 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.".
  - wolrah 11mo ago
    > For this specific regulation, it's illegal to prevent someone who passes physical security screening and has paid their fare from boarding a plane. 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.
    - OkayPhysicist 11mo ago
      Gilmore v. Gonzales (2006) sort of dealt with this. Dude wanted to fly, refused to present ID, refused the heightened security check, was told he couldn't fly. He sued, it went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that because the heightened security check was an option, the claimant's freedom of movement was not restricted. There's a bunch of case law about freedom of movement, which is pretty radically protected in the United States. Not only can the federal government not put up unreasonable impediments to interstate travel, individual states and even private companies can't, either. Since American's aren't required to have ID (interestingly, this might be more political than legal, I can't find any case law enshrining the right to not have ID, just a lot of public outcry and backpedaling any time it's suggested), requiring one to travel interstate would be a significant impediment.
- DSMan195276 11mo ago
  In this case the problem is that the fed is the one who runs the TSA and created the Real ID rules, but the states are the ones that actually issue the IDs meeting those rules. The fed couldn't force the states to implement the rules and the states didn't want to spend money on something they didn't really care about. 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.
- maxerickson 11mo ago
  There's 50 governments responsible for implementing this law. A few more I guess. Not 2 branches.
- OkayPhysicist 11mo ago
  In this particular case, it's because Americans have somewhat unusual deep-seated distrust of our own government, which has lead to pretty well-organized opposition to any federally mandated form of identification. Officially, the only two real semi-universal lists of American citizens available to the federal government are A) Social Security numbers (which aren't ID, they're just a unique identifier, and aren't legally mandated, just incentivized), and B) The Selective Service Registry, which IS legally mandated, but only for fighting age men. (Fun fact: this is why American men still need to register for the draft, despite the US not having a draft since Vietnam. This registration does not suggest that the US is any closer to re-instating the draft than any other country that eliminated their draft, as it would still take an act of congress, just as most countries can reinstate their draft with an act of parliament. The reason we have to register is that officially, the federal government otherwise has no idea who is even eligible to be drafted).
mjevans 11mo ago
ID should be something the government provides to everyone "for free" (for taxes already paid, by all taxpayers). 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.
wat10000 11mo ago
Requiring it would get it done, they just haven’t actually required it. They said it was required, but in reality you can still get through without one, with some additional screening. No surprise that this has not been very effective.
apple4ever 11mo ago
Instead in many states it cost more for the REAL ID
tuxracer 11mo ago
It basically is required, because without it they're treating you the same as if you showed up to the airport with no ID at all. 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.

mouse_ 11mo ago

I'm to believe this is done for my safety, which is apparently worth $45

3eb7988a1663 11mo ago
What is amazing is that a couple of weeks ago it was $18[0]. Yet what is really cooking my noodle is that the live site referenced from that post now says $45 [1]. Yet, if you check the waybackmachine the original article in fact said $18[2]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46019205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46019205 [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2025/11/21/tsa-security-fee-wrong-id/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2025/11/21/tsa-securit... [2] http://archive.today/2025.11.21-221013/https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2025/11/21/tsa-security-fee-wrong-id/ http://archive.today/2025.11.21-221013/https://www.washingto...
- hedora 11mo ago
  The important thing is that, like the tariffs, this is not a tax on Americans.
  - downrightmike 11mo ago
    Fixed it: The important thing is that, like the tariffs, this is a tax on Americans.
    - stavros 11mo ago
      That was exactly the joke :(
      - downrightmike 11mo ago
        Some people are extremely soft brained and don't believe it is a tax
downrightmike 11mo ago

FridayoLeary 11mo ago

Is this the better Id system everyones been asking for? 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.

nemomarx 11mo ago
This is just the drivers license with I think slightly more photographing or background checking, and in a different database? And a fancy star hologram. 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.
- givemeethekeys 11mo ago
  My guess is that it harmonizes federal and state records for identifying individuals.
  - kayodelycaon 11mo ago
    It’s definitely security related. Some states did barely any verification and didn’t have much protection against fake cards. 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.
    - givemeethekeys 11mo ago
      I imagine the more services are provided by an organization, the more that organization has to worry about who is receiving them.

dboreham 11mo ago

Background for the uninitiated: the USA is not quite a real country. It's 50 states that agreed to cooperate in various ways, and share a common army/navy. 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.

rayiner 11mo ago
Sounds great to me actually. I’m glad the states still have the leverage to do this.
adgjlsfhk1 11mo ago
> approximately nobody living in the US actually has a passport. This isn't true. Over half of US citizens have passports https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/about-us/reports-and-statistics.html?os=wtmbtqtajk9ya&ref=app https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/about-us/reports-...

qwertyuiop_ 11mo ago

Just use your passport!

ProllyInfamous 11mo ago
When you get a passport, get a Passport ID (wallet card) as well. It can be used to purchase alcohol and enter 21+ clubs — but cannot be scanned and doesn't have your address listed upon it.
OkayPhysicist 11mo ago
Okay, and what about the other half of Americans?

BrandoElFollito 11mo ago

At least you have something. In France you cannot fly without an id. Identity cards are free and you cannot really live without, you need to other your identity quite often. Sure, there are some convoluted ways to avoid that but it is a road paved with pain. It is like the ability to make z handwritten cheque. It is clearly described in the law but I wrote me to meet someone who wrote accept such a document. I guess the bank itself would be stunned.

daft_pink 11mo ago

It’s been a requirement forever and the truth is that many of the requirements were actually implemented by the stays decades ago for all ids and they keep pushing it back every year. It’s hard to feel sympathetic. It’s actually gracious of them to offer an alternative.

nobody9999 11mo ago
>It’s actually gracious of them to offer an alternative. I strongly disagree. The courts have repeatedly struck down limits on domestic travel over the past couple hundred years. In fact, the $45 "fee" is an acknowledgment that you aren't required to have special documents to travel within the US. Otherwise, they just wouldn't let you travel. So instead, they're making more security theater and punishing you if you don't comply with their demands. That's not "gracious," that's coercive. Edit: Fixed incorrect usage ("they'd" vs. "they").