Massachusetts has offered Real ID-compliant licenses and IDs since 2018
About 3.1 million people in Massachusetts already have a Real ID-compliant driver’s license or identification card and demand for the Registry of Motor Vehicles appointment required to get one is high ahead of a long-awaited May deadline.
Starting May 7, 2025, standard licenses or ID cards that are not federal Real ID-compliant will no longer be accepted as identification for domestic air travel or entering federal buildings and nuclear power plants. People without Real IDs will need to present a passport along with their license or ID card.
Massachusetts has offered Real ID-compliant licenses and IDs since 2018, and currently about 56% of the valid credentials here are Real ID-compliant, Registrar of Motor Vehicles Colleen Ogilvie said Wednesday.
That take-up rate lags most states — Ogilvie told the Mass. Department of Transportation board that 26 states have higher adoption rates, 10 others are in the 40% to 59% range with Massachusetts, and 19 states have lower adoption rates. It also reflect little growth over the last year. In February 2024, Ogilvie told lawmakers that the Real ID adoption rate was 54% at that time.
“This has been a long journey where the original requirements were issued in 2005, and some states passed legislation to prohibit the issuance of Real IDs, and some states passed legislation to require only issuing Real ID, so there are some states out there, that I can’t remember right off the top of my head right now, that are 98% compliance because they only issue Real IDs,” she said Wednesday.
Ogilvie’s presentation to the MassDOT board said the state’s goal is to hit 60% Real ID adoption by the time federal enforcement begins May 7. Last year, the registrar told lawmakers curious about the likely share of Massachusetts IDs that will be Real ID-compliant that “what we are looking at is probably realistic in the neighborhood of 60 percent.”
The RMV is planning an April 4 public hearing at the state transportation building in Boston on the regulations associated with the law Gov. Maura Healey signed in January preventing some decades-old offenses from counting against the eligibility of hundreds of commercial drivers.
That law instructed the RMV to craft new regulations by July 1 allowing drivers to regain commercial eligibility after a 10-year disqualification period, and Ogilvie said Wednesday the RMV is on track to meet that deadline.
