TSA now charges airline passengers $45 if they don’t have a REAL ID to confirm their identity. That one charge is supposed to be valid for 10 days, so on many itineraries you pay it once for a roundtrip. However, a Delta customer reports being charged by the agency 3 times in less than half an hour.
I’d appreciate some help from @Delta and @AskTSA. My trip home ended w/confusion, an embarrassing experience, & 3 unexpected $45 charges that left my bank account nearly 0. I’m just asking for someone to review & make it right❤️💙✈️ #CustomerService #Travel #Delta #TSA pic.twitter.com/VdfofpVP9k
— 🍀Ms. Jackson🍀 (@caramelkit10) August 3, 2026
Because this is the government, providing exactly the kind of service you’d expect from TSA, their response was “TSA doesn’t provide refunds” – they aren’t even willing to look into how this happened, or whether this was a mistake, just ‘if we take your money, we keep your money.’
TSA doesn't provide refunds for the TSA ConfirmID fee. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding. We recommend working with your financial institution for assistance regarding any additional charges.
— AskTSA (@AskTSA) August 3, 2026
Ironically when Southwest, Frontier, and JetBlue were caught keeping money they’d charged passengers that was supposed to go to TSA, the agency sued.
TSA announced the fee at $18 just in November, but raised it to $45 in December – before it even went into effect in February. In the Federal Register notice making this change they claimed that ConfirmID operations actually cost them $19.50 per passenger (the fee is just supposed to recoup their costs for the program) but $25.50 per passenger more because they wanted additional CT baggage scanners in standard security lanes at high traffic airports in states with low REAL ID compliance. In other words, it’s an equipment fund and they can self-budget any projects they say they want for ‘states with low REAL ID compliance’, usurping congressional tax and spend powers.
The fee itself, by the way, has shaky legal justification. They didn’t even promulgate this as a standard rule with notice and comment. Instead the agency argued it has unilateral authority to ‘just do this’ on its own based on the 2006 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act (49 U.S.C. 114) that authorizes the agency to impose a fee for any “registered traveler program.”
In other words, TSA said their authority to recoup costs for PreCheck lets them impose any costs they choose on passengers by creating a program that they call a ‘registered traveler program’ completely unrelated to what Congress intended (or what the cited law is about). The law also says the fee can’t exceed the agency’s costs, but they’ve drawn a circle around costs that are tenuously related at best.
ID requirements to fly began as a ‘do something’ policy after the explosion of TWA flight 800. President Clinton demanded to be able to immediately announce new airline security measures, and told his National Security Council team to come up with some.
The US government maintains targeting lists and airlines are required to check passengers against it before allowing them to fly. They maintain other lists that trigger increased security screening and potentially harassment. Without ID, those lists are useless because someone on them can fly under a different identity. But the lists themselves contain significant garbage information.
You can get on the list just by being related to someone (guilt by association) suspected of terrorist involvement. Or just traveling to the wrong country at the wrong time. An army veteran and civilian military contractor was placed on the list for having visited Yemen in 2009. Or because someone at the FBI checked the wrong box on a form by mistake, or failed to check a box by mistake or in retaliation for refusing to become an FBI informant. We don’t even know much more about what goes into these determinations because the government has claimed their secret sauce is a ‘state secret’.
Targeting lists aren’t only used by the government, and they’re not secure. In fact the U.S. distributes the list to over 1400 private organizations and shares it with other governments. It’s used for purposes beyond national security.
It appears that federal government lawyers have perjured themselves claiming that the list was not shared. It’s even given to “police forces at private universities, hospital security staff” and it’s not clear what, if any, restrictions there are on how the information is used. Meanwhile the government “adds hundreds of thousands of names to the list every year.”
There are now nearly two million names on terrorism watch lists and the entire list was leaked online via a Bahrain server.
Charging people $45 is a burden on the right to travel. Charging people 3 times the published fee and stating ‘TSA doesn’t offer refunds’ is an abomination.
- Travel is a fundamental right. The right to move freely between states is a well-established principle in U.S. law affirmed by several Supreme Court cases under the Privileges and Immunities Clause and Commerce Clause.
Crandall v. Nevada (1868) struck down a Nevada law imposing a tax on individuals leaving the state because states couldn’t restrict citizen movement across state lines.
United States v. Guest (1966) held that there is a Constitutional right to travel from state to state.
Shapiro v. Thompson (1969) held that states could not impose residency requirements to restrict welfare benefits. The Court found that the right to travel includes the right to migrate to another state and receive equal treatment as a resident.
Saenz v. Roe (1999) struck down a California law that limited welfare benefits for new residents. The Court delineated three components of the right to travel: The right to enter and leave another state; the right to be treated as a welcome visitor rather than a hostile outsider; the right to become a resident of any state and enjoy the same privileges and immunities as other residents.
- The government wants to impinge on that right with positive identity checks. If it does this, there shouldn’t be a further, specific cost imposed on the individual seeking to exercise their right. If identity checks are a collective benefit, then the cost should be shared collectively.
- Taxing travelers with extra fees amounts to punishment for not having the government’s preferred form of identity documents.
- And these processes and fees should require authorization by Congress (the TSA’s ‘too cute by half’ excuse notwithstanding) and subject to proper notice and comment.
The TSA is its own, unaccountable regulator. It fails repeatedly, and only sees its funding go up.
It costs over $10 billion a year, fails 90% of the time, and the agency covers up its failures. What’s primarily protected us is that there aren’t actually active plots against aviation (as admitted by TSA itself), cockpits have been reinforced, and passengers would no longer sit idly by. The rest of it is largely theater by an agency that has never caught – or stopped – a terrorist.
Finders, Keepers; and if hotels and rental car companies can get away with charging insane hidden fees, why shouldn’t TSA. Heck, some local and state governments collect way more in taxes from tourists than the tourists cost them, why shouldn’t federal government do the same?
The passenger says that they were charged 3 times and their bank account was left at nearly zero. This suggests that they paid by ACH or debit card (TSA accepts ACH, paypal, venmo, debit or credit card https://www.pay.gov/public/form/start/1820857221 ).
You should always use a credit card, it’s much easier to dispute fraudulent transactions and errors.
Not to mention cashback and miles 🙂
Ya know, instead of focusing on the actual issues here (rigid, non-refundable payment rules; clunky user interfaces; poor error-handling software) let’s do what we typically do here, and just blame the other team… (@Michael Mainello, you have your coffee/tea/other yet?)
@1990
Ridgid non-refundable payment rules, clunky user interfaces, and poor error-handling software is the least of the issues that Gary brought up.
You are usually pretty good with picking up on the Constitutional issues.
@Jay Gee — Is that bait, or would you like to take the lead on this one?
(Gary has covered this topic before, and we’ve had ‘debates’ on that before, but we can rehash it all over again.)
Fine, I’ll start it out with a fun one: While there is a right to interstate travel, there is no constitutional right to air travel or any particular method of travel, but good luck swimming to Hawaii.
THIS is why I follow you – a shared abhorrence of everything about the TSA. I’ll bet someone could come up with an equally effective terrorist deterrent (because that’s the highest form of protection they can validly claim) that costs, y’know, a bit less than $10B and doesn’t involve nudiscopes or 3-1-1 bags or frisking baby diapers.
Solution is pretty simple: Apply for and receive your “Real ID” …. No more problems. Before we start talking about barriers to access and certain folks can’t seem to find or afford the DMV in their state or city, they made it to the airport ostensibly with a paid ticket and then faced the confirm ID charges didn’t they? Well, if they made it to the airport for a flight, chances are pretty good they could make it to the DMV. Just saying
For example, it took me 20 minutes of my time and cost $40 in California for a Real ID (I think it was less than $25 back when I did it). Since California has the highest prices on most everything, I imagine the fees in other states are probably less. So, when you do the math, applying for a Real ID saves you at least $5 on your first flight and $45 on the following flights if you can’t seem to find your way to the DMV, you should just keep throwing money at TSA because that makes a lot of sense. Signs at the airport said Real ID was a requirement for at least the past 2 years, so don’t act surprised when our benevolent government charges you a fee to make sure you are who you say you are.
Small claims court The seize asset
If losing $90 is causing someone to go completely broke, they shouldn’t be flying anywhere.
A worthless entity operating under a worthless host. What could go wrong?
@Mike P — You forgot to add “I am not driving, I am traveling” and to claim “diplomatic immunity” or whatever you sovereign citizens typically say.
@Jay Gee — Hey! Still waiting for your rebuttal since you went radio-silent!
You do see that Gary laid the whole thing out, right? TSA stretched a law meant for voluntary programs to hit travelers with an unauthorized $45 fee, then diverted over half of it to buy airport hardware without asking Congress. Throw in IT glitches that triple-charge passengers with a “no refunds” policy, and you’ve got a 5th Amendment Due Process violation. Between passengers holding class-action standing and privacy groups like The Identity Project picking apart the Privacy Act/Paperwork Reduction Act defects, TSA built themselves an administrative law nightmare. Gary basically wrote the plaintiffs’ brief for them; did you really need me to give him an “attaboy” for doing what he usually does?
The solution: Learn to fly…then get type-rated in a G7.
Oh, wait….first thing: make $500 million
Agree TSA is egregious and RealID is an invasion of privacy. Disagree with courts that say interstate travel for soaking up welfare is a right. Welfare is not a right.
@jack the ladd — Woah there. To be fair to the courts, I don’t think they ever said welfare is a constitutional right (in fact, pretty sure the US Supreme Court in Dandridge v. Williams, 1970, said the exact opposite).
What the Court struck down in Shapiro (1969) and Saenz (1999) wasn’t a “right to benefits,” but states creating two tiers of citizenship by making new residents wait a year for equal treatment. States can set their own welfare rules, but under the 14th Amendment, they have to apply those rules equally to all residents regardless of how long they’ve lived there.
So, as long as Saenz remains the law of the land, your preference for protecting state budgets from “welfare shopping” cannot be achieved by targeting new arrivals; it can only be achieved by reducing benefits for the entire state population equally. (Which, you may want to do, but, that, well, would reduce or eliminate the social safety net… I take it you’re not a big fan of the New Deal or the Great Society or Medicare for All, are you?)
It’s fascinating how selective we get about residency requirements. We demand strict waiting periods for low-income families moving across state lines, yet we routinely see political candidates move states just to snag an open Senate seat… Oz from NJ for Senate in PA (2022), Walker from TX for Senate in GA (2022), McCormick from CT also for Senate in PA (2024), Rogers from FL for Senate in MI (2024 and 2026), and Paxton from ND for Senate in TEX (2026)… what do they also all have in common? Their party affiliation. Hmm. Yeah, let’s worry about the single moms on Food Stamps though. They’re the reason we have enormous national deficits and debt. Quick, call Paul Ryan back into public service! Wake up, sir!
(Somewhat related, if you saw the ‘Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride’-of-a-comment-section between @Michael Mainello and me over on Gary’s recent post about hotel surveillance cameras from August 3, 2026, at one point—August 4, 9:06 PM—Michael inadvertently equated voting rights to welfare, and I had to remind him, around 9:26 PM, that while some would love that to be the case, it would seem that constitutional law says otherwise. I’ll admit, it was a little tongue-in-cheek. Join us deep-down in the rabbit-hole, if interested. Or just enjoy the ride.)
And, jack, if this stuff isn’t fun for you, just tell me, and I’ll cut back on all the juicy details, mah man…
I guess it wasn’t ‘fun.’ Oh well. Maybe next time. Hope you’re doing well, jack.