Q&AZ: Will Arizonans need a Real ID to fly in 2025?

Many Arizonans are asking: Will I need a Real ID to fly in 2025? Through KJZZ's Q&AZ reporting project, here's the answer:

Anyone who wants to take a domestic flight after May 7 will need to get a federally compliant travel ID or driver’s license. That date comes after the Real ID deadline was pushed back multiple times.

Of the 7.6 million active IDs issued in Arizona, 2.35 million are Real ID compliant.

In order to get one, people need to visit an MVD location in person and bring federally accepted forms of identification like a birth certificate, and two documents that show Arizona residency.

“So that could be your credit card statement, your utility bills, a bank statement, anything that comes delivered to you in the mail printed on it and shows that same address," said Bill Lamoreaux with the Arizona Department of Transportation.

The Transportation Security Administration already has proposed a rule to keep the deadline but delay full enforcement until May 7, 2027.

The ID costs $25, and these new licenses are good for only eight years.

Real ID first announced in 2005

If it seems like all this has been a long time in coming, you wouldn't be wrong.

Congress approved the requirement in 2005 in the wake of the 2001 hijacking of airplanes that were flown into the two World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and a fourth that was grounded by passengers before it could hit the White House. The anticipated date of enforcement was 2010.

The first response of Arizona lawmakers, however, was to pass a law in 2008 refusing to participate amid fears that the new licenses -- and the linked databases that would be required -- essentially would create a national ID card.

Then-Gov. Janet Napolitano signed the refusal. But she said her concern was less about privacy than that the federal government was not offering up any money to cover the costs.

It took until 2015 -- with Department of Homeland Security threatening to start sending away Arizonans with regular state licenses at airports by January 2016 -- for lawmakers to finally authorize the enhanced licenses.

But that 2016 enforcement never took place. And the deadline kept getting pushed back, the most recent due to COVID-19, with it now standing at May 7.