Texas ID review 2026

If you haven't seen the new Texas design yet, you are in for a treat. Texas went from having one of the easiest IDs to one of the most complex in the country. We're talking about multiple ghost images, a huge state shape that changes color, and some of the most intricate UV I've ever seen. I recently picked up one of these new Texas novelty id cards to see if any vendor has actually mastered it yet. The biggest challenge is the window feature where the ghost image is transparent and you can see through the card. Most vendors just print a blurry photo on both sides, but the high-end guys are actually using a laser to clear the plastic. The one I got is about 95% of the way there. If you hold it up to a very bright light, the window looks pretty legit. The barcode on the back also includes all the correct hidden fields that the newer scanners are looking for. I tried it at a liquor store in Houston and the clerk didn't even blink. One tip for Texas specifically: make sure the DD number on the front matches the encoded data on the back. A lot of cheap vendors just use a generic number for every card, and that's a quick way to get caught if the scanner shows a different number than what's printed on the card. The blue header on the top of the card also has a very specific shade that's hard to get right too dark and it looks like a toy, too light and it looks faded. This new batch I got really nailed the color. It's definitely one of the best new design cards I've seen this year.