By Defense Manpower Data Center, ID Card Center Online     July 2025

On May 7, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security began enforcing the Real ID Act. The purpose of Real ID is to standardize what forms of identification or documentation can be used to access certain federal facilities, board domestic commercial flights, and in some cases, enter military installations.

If you already possess military or Department of Defense (DOD) credentials however, there will be no change … for now. The largest demographic impacted by enforcement of the Real ID Act, are those non-DOD personnel without base access credentials.

On the topic of identification cards, it is also important for Retired Soldiers, dependents, and surviving spouses to know at some time in the future, old forms of the Uniformed Services Identification (USID) cards will not be valid to access military installations; therefore, the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC), responsible for issuing military and government ID cards, highly encourages everyone with an old-style ID card to obtain the new NextGen ID card. This also holds true for those who have an ID card with an INDEF expiration date on it – the ID will still be invalid, although at the time of this printing, DOD has not specified a date when this change will happen.

Based on this, we strongly encourage everyone with an old-style ID card to get a NextGen ID card now!

There are several ways to make an appointment to get a new, NextGen ID card. You can visit the RAPIDS ID Card Office Locator website to find the closest office to you, and either call them to make an appointment or schedule your own appointment using the website: https://idco.dmdc.osd. mil/idco/. To make an appointment using this site select the “ID Card Office Locator & Appointments” block.

Another option available to those who meet the below requirements, is to renew your ID card online and have it mailed to you, no waiting in line! The following are the requirements to renew a card online:

• Sponsor must be a CAC holder or have a DOD Self-Service Logon username/password
• Must be requesting a renewal of an active USID card
• Sponsor and Cardholder must have email addresses listed in DEERS that they have authorized DOD to use for contacting them
• Sponsor’s personnel status must extend at least 30 days into the future
• Cardholder has a photo saved in DEERS taken in the last 12 years
• Cardholder’s mailing address is present in DEERS.
• USID cards cannot be shipped to PO Boxes

Once the new card is received, the sponsor will need to acknowledge receipt of the new USID card to activate it, and will also need to mail back the old one. More information can be found at: https://www.cac.mil/Next-Generation- Uniformed-Services-ID-Card/Renewing-Online/.

If you have an old-style ID card, you can get the new NextGen ID at any time - do it now!