Massachusetts has provided Actual ID-compliant licenses and IDs since 2018
About 3.1 million individuals in Massachusetts have already got a Actual ID-compliant driver’s license or identification card and demand for the Registry of Motor Autos appointment required to get one is excessive forward of a long-awaited Might deadline.
Beginning Might 7, 2025, customary licenses or ID playing cards that aren’t federal Actual ID-compliant will now not be accepted as identification for home air journey or getting into federal buildings and nuclear energy vegetation. Folks with out Actual IDs might want to current a passport together with their license or ID card.
Massachusetts has provided Actual ID-compliant licenses and IDs since 2018, and presently about 56% of the legitimate credentials listed below are Actual ID-compliant, Registrar of Motor Autos Colleen Ogilvie stated Wednesday.
That take-up fee lags most states — Ogilvie advised the Mass. Division of Transportation board that 26 states have increased adoption charges, 10 others are within the 40% to 59% vary with Massachusetts, and 19 states have decrease adoption charges. It additionally mirror little development over the past yr. In February 2024, Ogilvie advised lawmakers that the Actual ID adoption fee was 54% at the moment.
“This has been an extended journey the place the unique necessities have been issued in 2005, and a few states handed laws to ban the issuance of Actual IDs, and a few states handed laws to require solely issuing Actual ID, so there are some states on the market, that I can’t keep in mind proper off the highest of my head proper now, which can be 98% compliance as a result of they solely difficulty Actual IDs,” she stated Wednesday.
Ogilvie’s presentation to the MassDOT board stated the state’s purpose is to hit 60% Actual ID adoption by the point federal enforcement begins Might 7. Final yr, the registrar told lawmakers curious concerning the probably share of Massachusetts IDs that will likely be Actual ID-compliant that “what we’re might be sensible within the neighborhood of 60 p.c.”
The RMV is planning an April 4 public listening to on the state transportation constructing in Boston on the laws related to the legislation Gov. Maura Healey signed in January stopping some decades-old offenses from counting towards the eligibility of a whole lot of economic drivers.
That legislation instructed the RMV to craft new laws by July 1 permitting drivers to regain industrial eligibility after a 10-year disqualification interval, and Ogilvie stated Wednesday the RMV is on observe to satisfy that deadline.
