Can I Just Use My BOP ID?
In short – yes.
If you’re boarding a plane as a regular citizen, after May 7th of 2025, you need a Real ID.
We got this question in our Facebook Group, also called Federal Prison Tips.
As an inmate just leaving your former place of incarceration, you can use the BOP issued ID card to board an airline, but you can’t use it to travel after that. Only that first time.
Now, if your inmate is at a Federal Medical Center like Butner or Fort Worth, where they regularly transport people on commercial airlines following incarceration, most workers at the airport are used to seeing BOP IDs.
At other airports where showing your BOP ID is less common and causes confusion, it’s important that the family and/or the inmate communicates with R&D that they’ve arranged transportation via the airline.
That way, the town driver or guard who escorts the inmate to the airport has time to communicate with the airline workers that this is a BOP ID, the inmate was just released, and needs to use this as a means to board and get home.