That little star on your U.S. driver’s license is about to save you $45.
Beginning Sunday, air travelers in the U.S. without a REAL ID or another acceptable form of identification, such as a passport, are subject to a new fee.
It isn't a penalty or a fine — it's payment for non-compliant travelers to use the Transportation Security Administration's new alternate identity verification option called ConfirmID. But the process takes extra time, and paying the fee doesn’t guarantee you’ll make your flight.
The Department of Homeland Security says most U.S. travelers are already compliant and that the fee is meant to encourage the rest — those without a star-marked REAL ID — to obtain one.
Still, the new fee may catch some passengers off guard, so here's a breakdown:
It is a federally compliant state-issued license or identification card that meets enhanced requirements mandated in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Obtaining the ID means taking more documents to the motor vehicle agency than most states require for regular IDs. It was supposed to be rolled out in 2008, but the implementation was repeatedly delayed.
The updated ID is indicated by a white star in a yellow circle in most U.S. states. It has been required since May, but travelers without it — and without another TSA-accepted ID — were still allowed through security with extra screening and a warning. That changes Sunday.
Travelers 18 and older flying domestically without proper identification on them will have to pay $45 to verify their identity at the airport through the ConfirmID process. If approved, the verification covers a 10-day travel period.
Paying the fee, however, does not guarantee access to U.S. air travel, and passengers whose identities cannot be verified may be turned away at airport security.
“This fee ensures that non-compliant travelers, not taxpayers, cover the cost of processing travelers without acceptable IDs,” said Adam Stahl, acting TSA deputy administrator.
The service fee is paid online at tsa.gov/ConfirmID. Travelers will have to enter their legal name and the start date of their travel. Accepted payment methods include debit and credit cards, Venmo and PayPal.
Someone other than the traveler can make the payment, according to TSA, but the traveler’s information must be entered correctly.
Passengers will then receive an emailed payment receipt from pay.gov.
At the airport checkpoint, show a government-issued ID and a digital or printed copy of the receipt to begin the verification process.
TSA recommends that travelers pay the fee before arriving at the airport to save on time, as the verification process alone could take up to 30 minutes.
TSA accepts digital IDs through platforms such as Apple Wallet and Google Wallet at more than 250 airport checkpoints in the U.S.
The agency has a full list of acceptable IDs on its website. They include:
— Passport or passport card
— Permanent resident cards
— Trusted traveler cards, such as Global Entry or NEXUS
— Military IDs
— Photo IDs from federally recognized tribal nations
FILE - Travelers walk past a Real ID sign posted inside terminal 3 at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Friday, May 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — The Justice Department on Friday released many more records from its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein, resuming disclosures under a law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financier's sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with rich and powerful people such as Donald Trump and Bill Clinton.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department would be releasing more than 3 million pages of documents along with more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. The files, posted to the department’s website, include some of the several million pages of records that officials said were withheld from an initial release in December.
Included were documents concerning some of Epstein's famous associates, including Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Britain’s Prince Andrew, and email correspondence between Epstein and Elon Musk and other prominent contacts from across the political spectrum.
The documents were disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law enacted after months of public and political pressure that requires the government to open its files on the late financier and his confidant and onetime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. Lawmakers complained when the Justice Department made only a limited release last month, but officials said more time was needed to review additional documents that were discovered and to ensure no sensitive information about victims was released.
Friday's disclosure represents the largest document dump to date about a saga the Trump administration has struggled to shake because of the president's previous association with Epstein. Criminal investigations into the financier have long animated online sleuths, conspiracy theorists and others who have suspected government cover-ups and clamored for a full accounting, demands that Blanche acknowledged might not be satisfied by the latest release.
“There’s a hunger, or a thirst, for information that I don’t think will be satisfied by the review of these documents," he said.
After missing a Dec. 19 deadline set by Congress to release all the files, the Justice Department said it tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needed to be redacted, or blacked out. It denied any effort to shield Trump, who says he cut ties with Epstein years ago after an earlier friendship, from potential embarrassment.
The latest batch includes correspondence either with or about some of Epstein's friends.
The records have thousands of references to Trump, including emails in which Epstein and others shared news articles about him, commented on his policies or politics, or gossiped about him and his family. Also included was a spreadsheet created last August summarizing calls to the FBI’s National Threat Operation Center or to a hotline established by prosecutors from people claiming without corroboration to have some knowledge of wrongdoing by Trump.
Mountbatten-Windsor's name appears at least several hundred times in the documents, sometimes in news clippings, sometimes in Epstein’s private email correspondence and in guest lists for dinners organized by Epstein. Some records document an attempt by prosecutors in New York to get the former prince to agree to be interviewed as part of their Epstein sex trafficking probe.
The records also show Musk, the billionaire Tesla founder, reached out to Epstein on at least two occasions to plan visits to the Caribbean island where many of the allegations of sexual abuse purportedly occurred.
In a 2012 exchange, Epstein asked how many people Musk would like flown by helicopter to the island he owned.
“Probably just Talulah and me,” Musk responded, referencing his then-partner, actress Talulah Riley. “What day/night will be the wildest party on our island?”
Musk messaged Epstein again ahead of a planned Caribbean trip in 2013. “Will be in the BVI/St Bart’s area over the holidays,” he wrote. “Is there a good time to visit?” Epstein extended an invite for after the New Year holiday.
It’s not immediately clear if the island visits took place. Spokespeople for Musk’s companies, Tesla and X, didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.
Musk has said he repeatedly rebuffed Epstein's overtures.
“Epstein tried to get me to go to his island and I REFUSED,” he posted on X in 2025 when House Democrats released an Epstein calendar with an entry mentioning a potential Musk visit.
Epstein also appears to have tried to connect New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch with women, according to emails. In one exchange, Tisch told Epstein he had had lunch with one of Epstein’s assistant’s friends. He described her as a “very sweet girl,” and asked if Epstein knew anything about her.
“no, but i will ask,” said Epstein, before inquiring if Tisch had contacted another woman, crudely describing her physical features.
Tisch said in a statement that he had a “brief association” with Epstein where they emailed about adult women and other topics. He said he “never went to his island” and that he “deeply regrets” the association.
The documents show that Steve Bannon, a conservative activist who served as Trump’s White House strategist earlier in the president’s first term, bantered over politics with the financier, discussed get-togethers with him over breakfast, lunch or dinner and, on March 29, 2019, asked Epstein if he could supply his plane to pick him up in Rome.
Epstein told him his pilot and crew “are doing their best” to arrange that flight but if Bannon could find a charter flight instead, “I’m happy to pay.” Apparently in France at the time, Epstein sent a text message saying: “My guys can pick you up. Come for dinner.” The exchange did not show how that played out.
In December 2012, Epstein invited Howard Lutnick, now Trump's commerce secretary, to his private island for lunch, the records show. Lutnick’s wife accepted the invitation and said they would arrive on a yacht with their children. On another occasion in 2011, the two men had drinks, according to a schedule shared with Epstein.
Lutnick has said he cut ties with Epstein long ago. A Commerce Department spokesman said Lutnick had “limited interactions with Mr. Epstein in the presence of his wife and has never been accused of wrongdoing.”
Another Epstein contact surfacing in the records is former Obama White House general counsel Kathy Ruemmler. In one of several exchanges, Epstein emailed Ruemmler to advise that Democrats should stop demonizing Trump as a Mafia-type figure even as he derided the president as a “maniac.”
A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs, where Ruemmler is general counsel and chief legal officer, said in a statement that Ruemmler “had a professional association with Jeffrey Epstein when she was a lawyer in private practice” and "regrets ever knowing him.”
The tens of thousands of pages released last month included previously released flight logs showing Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s, before their falling-out, and several photographs of Clinton. None of Epstein’s victims who have gone public with their stories have publicly accused Trump, a Republican, nor Clinton, a Democrat, of wrongdoing. Both have said they had no knowledge he was abusing underage girls.
Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after being indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.
In 2008 and 2009, Epstein served jail time in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. At the time, investigators had gathered evidence that Epstein had sexually abused underage girls at his Palm Beach home. The U.S. attorney's office agreed not to prosecute him in exchange for his guilty plea to lesser state charges.
A draft indictment from that period released Friday shows prosecutors contemplated federal charges against not just Epstein but three others who were his personal assistants and were suspected of participating in a conspiracy to recruit underage girls to perform lewd acts with Epstein.
In 2021, a federal jury in New York convicted Maxwell, a British socialite, of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of his underage victims. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
U.S. prosecutors never charged anyone else in connection with Epstein's abuse of girls. One victim, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, accused him in lawsuits of having arranged for her to have sexual encounters at age 17 and 18 with numerous politicians, business titans, academics and others. They all denied her allegations.
Among those accused was Britain's Prince Andrew, who was stripped of his royal titles amid the scandal. Andrew denied having sex with Giuffre but settled her lawsuit for an undisclosed sum.
Giuffre died by suicide last year at age 41.
Tucker and Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press journalists from around the country contributed to this report.
Follow the AP's coverage of Jeffrey Epstein at https://apnews.com/hub/jeffrey-epstein.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche meets with reporters as the Justice Department announces the release of three million pages of documents in the latest Jeffrey Epstein disclosure in Washington, Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche meets with reporters as the Justice Department says it's releasing 3 million pages of documents in the latest Jeffrey Epstein disclosure, along with 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, in Washington, Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
An email that was included in the U.S. Department of Justice release of the Jeffrey Epstein files is photographed Friday, Jan. 30, 2026, and shows a 2009 order of no contact in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)
An email that was included in the U.S. Department of Justice release of the Jeffrey Epstein files is photographed Friday, Jan. 30, 2026, and shows the cell where Epstein was found unresponsive. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche meets with reporters as the Justice Department says it's releasing 3 million pages of documents in the latest Jeffrey Epstein disclosure, along with 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, in Washington, Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
FILE - Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche listens to President Donald Trump speak in the State Dining Room at the White House, Oct. 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - Documents that were included in the U.S. Department of Justice release of the Jeffrey Epstein files are photographed Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File)
