The deadline has arrived for Mainers to comply with a federal law regulating state-issued identification.
Starting Wednesday, the federal government will no longer accept driver’s licenses and identification not compliant with Real ID for boarding domestic flights. Real ID-compliant identification is already required for entering military bases and certain federal facilities.
That marks the end of Real ID’s circuitous path to implementation two decades after Congress approved it.
As of last week, just over 27 percent of Mainers had compliant identification, a slight improvement from about 20 percent a year ago but still the lowest compliance rate in New England.
That low compliance rate has worried state officials. On Thursday, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, state Sens. Tim Nangle and Brad Farrin, and state Reps. Lydia Crafts and Wayne Perry implored Transportation Security Administration Deputy Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to phase in implementation, expressing concern about its impact on the tourist season and safety at airports.
“This will create a potentially disruptive and unsafe situation at the security checkpoints of Maine’s three primary airports,” they wrote in a letter dated May 1, 2025.
But as of Monday, there appears to be no signs that the federal government will make any more concessions over Real ID.
Real ID emerged in 2005 as one of the key recommendations in the 9/11 Commission Report to address national security concerns in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
It set national standards to improve the security of state-issued identification to prevent undocumented immigrants and terrorists from obtaining U.S. driver’s licenses. Several of the 9/11 hijackers had obtained state-issued driver’s licenses in the months leading up to the attacks.
But many states balked at what they saw as federal overreach. And the Maine Legislature in 2007 passed a law prohibiting the state from complying with Real ID amid concerns that it would create a de facto “internal passport.”
That nationwide protest among states prompted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which Congress tasked with enforcing Real ID, to repeatedly delay enforcement since the original deadline of May 11, 2008. Under the Obama administration, Homeland Security took a harder stance against noncompliance, and more states began adopting the standards.
Maine’s prohibition was eventually repealed, in April 2017, when lawmakers passed a bill directing the secretary of state’s office to finally bring Maine into compliance with Real ID.
But those skepticisms of Real ID linger in Maine, where people still harbor serious privacy concerns and remain wary of federalizing state-issued identification. It’s not just skepticism of Real ID that’s driving the lower opt-in rate.
Some Mainers, especially those in the rural north, have been used to frequent travel across the border into Canada and may already have an accepted alternative, such as a U.S. passport or passport card.
Other barriers include the high level of documentation required. For instance, women who have changed their last names either through marriage or divorce need to provide documentation for those changes.
Another factor is cost. A compliant noncommercial driver’s license costs $55, compared with $30 for one that’s noncompliant. That’s even more marked for an ID card, which costs $30 to comply with Real ID versus $5 for one that doesn’t.
Maine’s late adoption didn’t help matters. Maine only began issuing compliant identification on July 1, 2019, whereas highly compliant Vermont began doing so in 2014.
What makes a compliant license stand apart is a golden outline of the state of Maine with a white star within it in the top right corner. That signals you met all the requirements to get a Real ID.
If you don’t have a Real ID, you will instead see a message that reads: “Not intended for federal purposes.”
Mainers who decide to opt out can still use accepted alternatives, such as a U.S. passport or passport card, to prove their identities in order to board domestic flights.
