Starting in 2016, the 38 percent of Americans who do not have passports will not be able to board an airplane - thanks to Real ID, the program being enforced by the Department of Homeland Security, which requires flyers to present a Federal ID such as a passport or a driver's license that meets the standards set forth by the agency.

Unfortunately for residents of several states, their driver's licences do not meet the minimum requirements and have been deemed 'noncompliant'. This means that unless travelers from those states apply for their passports or get their expired ones renewed, they will be unable to travel by air domestically when the program is set in full force next year.

The affected 'noncompliant' states are significant. Residents of the states namely, American Samoa, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and New York will be unable to use their driver's licences as official IDs when traveling anymore.

Fortunately for New York and Minnesota residents, they may use their Enhanced IDs, which are driving licenses that are accepted also for crossing the border to Canada, Mexico and the Carribean.

For residents of all the other affected states, unless each state's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) begins to make the changes so that their IDs comply with the Real ID standards put in place by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), they will remain unable to fly unless they can present an ID, such as a passport.

The precise date of when the Real ID system will be enforced has not been set yet. It still has many travelers worrying that with only three months left in the current year, they may not have enough time to get their passports in time when 2016 rolls in and when the program is in place, whenever that may be.

In lieu of U.S. Passport Cards and Enhanced Drivers Licenses, the following will be the only acceptable forms of ID when flying domestically:

• U.S. military ID cards
• Permanent resident cards
• DHS trusted traveler cards (i.e. Global Entry, NEXUS)
• Border Crossing Card
• Airline or airport-issued ID (if issued under a TSA-approved security plan) 
• HSPD-12 PIV card 
• Transportation worker identification credential 

Photos:
Tony Webster | Flickr
Quinn Dombrowski | Flickr

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