Need to fly? You’ll need Real ID by May 7
New drivers’ licenses could take up to 21 days for hard copy, County Clerk Jeff Cole says
Deputy Clerk Diana Bridgeman helps a customer seeking a Real ID driver’s license on Monday morning at the Norris office of Anderson County Clerk Jeff Cole. On the right is Shelby Byrge, the Norris office manager. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
But anyone who doesn’t have either a qualifying Real ID license or a valid passport by now might not be able to board a plane until they get one – and that could take up to 21 days, Anderson County Clerk Jeff Cole said Monday.
Although the clerk’s offices in Norris and Oak Ridge are processing Real ID license applications, it probably would be three weeks before someone applying today would get the actual plastic license card in the mail from the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, Cole said.
“If you’re trying to fly Thursday, May 8, and you haven’t got it yet, you’re not flying,” Cole said. “It has to be a hard copy. Even if you go to the state office, you’re getting a paper copy, and it’s taking about 21 days to get a hard copy back.”
The Real ID license has a star in the upper right corner, and Transportation Security Administration officials in the airports are not supposed to allow anyone through security without the new-style license or a valid passport after May 7.
Real ID will also be required to pass through security to enter restricted federal offices, as well.
“My explanation is that the Real ID act is a poor man’s passport,” Cole said. “It’s saying you are who you are.”
The good news is that people don’t have to make appointments or wait in long lines at state driver’s license offices to get their Real ID licenses, as some people are saying on social media.
Cole’s offices in Anderson County have been able to provide Real ID licenses for three years. Originally, applicants had to go to the clerk’s offices at the courthouse in Clinton or in Oak Ridge, but the program was shifted from the courthouse to the clerk’s office in Norris because of security measures in place at the courthouse, Cole said.
“We’ve been quite busy with the Real IDs, doing about 100 a week at the Norris and Oak Ridge locations combined,” he said Monday.
In the Norris office, wait times have never been long, however, and the process takes only a few minutes at either location.
Another rumor Cole has been trying to squelch is that the deadline to get a Real ID is May 7, and that none will be issued after that, he said.
“That’s completely untrue,” Cole said. “You’ll be able to get Real ID licenses May 8 and beyond; you’ll just need to have one by May 7 to travel by air.”
To upgrade a driver’s license to the Real ID version, applicants must bring a birth certificate or valid passport to the clerk’s office, along with a Social Security card or IRS W-2 or 1099 form showing the applicant’s Social Security number, and two proofs of residency, Cole said.
“They have to be original or certified documents,” he said. “They can’t be hospital birth certificates with baby feet on them.”
The proof of residency “can be a voter’s card, car registration, utility bill – gas or power, no phone bills.”
Those whose driver’s licenses show a last name different from the one on their birth certificates must also show a certified legal document supporting the name change, the state requirements show – such as a marriage license.
