PDF417 (driver’s license and boarding pass barcode)
PDF417 is the wide, stacked barcode on the back of a US or Canadian driver’s license or ID card and on printed airline boarding passes. On a license, its data corresponds to what is printed on the card.
Easily confused with
How to read it
It is a stacked barcode: many short rows of bars between a start pattern and a stop pattern. IATA’s guide explains the structure from the standard, ISO/IEC 15438: each codeword is 17 modules long, four bars and four spaces, and row indicators at the ends give the number of rows and columns and the error correction level.
Also searched as: aamva barcode, barcode on back of driver’s license, boarding pass barcode, drivers license barcode, pdf 417, pdf417, stacked 2d barcode.
These pages say what each code and its parts mean under the standard that defines it. A barcode identifies an item; it doesn’t say where the item was made or whether it is genuine, and the label and the maker are the place to look for that.
On a driver’s license
The AAMVA card design standard for its member jurisdictions in the US and Canada makes PDF417 the minimum machine-readable technology on a compliant license or ID card, in Zone V on the side without the portrait. Under its rule of harmonization, the mandatory data in the barcode corresponds to what is printed on the card. A REAL ID carries it mainly so that state and local police can check the card is valid, AAMVA says.
On a boarding pass
IATA adopted PDF417 as the airline standard for bar coded boarding passes in 2005, as the first open standard able to hold several flights; one boarding pass can carry up to four. Its current standard also allows Aztec, Data Matrix and QR codes on paper passes, and a phone shows one of those three, not PDF417.
Look-alikes
A GS1 DataBar on a produce sticker has only two stacked rows. A QR code or Data Matrix code is a grid of squares.
Read next
- Next in Barcodes and QR codesUPC barcode (UPC-A)A UPC-A barcode carries a 12-digit product number: the brand owner’s company prefix, then the company’s own number for the item, then a check digit.
- The same shape in Currency symbolsEuro sign (€)The euro sign (€) stands for the euro, the single currency of the member countries of the European Economic and Monetary Union. It is based on the Greek letter epsilon, crossed by two parallel lines for stability.
More barcodes and QR codes
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with lines.
Sources
- 2020 AAMVA DL/ID Card Design Standard, Version 1.0, Annex A and Annex D, American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, A.6; A.7.6 Zone V; 0.3; D.3; D.5.2
- Bar Coded Boarding Pass (BCBP) Implementation Guide, Version 7, 2 March 2021, International Air Transport Association, §1.2.1; §2.1.1; Appendix C
- Industry Achieves 100% Bar Coded Boarding Pass Milestone, Press release, 15 December 2010, International Air Transport Association, Press release
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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