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Mississippi acknowledges printing issue affecting driver’s license barcodes
Update: The State of Mississippi has acknowledged a printing error that resulted in some driver’s licenses being issued with unreadable barcodes. Residents who received an affected license can request a free replacement.
Thousands of Mississippi driver’s licenses issued in May 2026 were printed with barcode quality issues that prevent electronic ID scanners from reading the information encoded on the card. The problem has impacted routine identity verification at airports, banks, rental car counters, retailers, and anywhere businesses rely on barcode scanning to quickly verify an ID.
While the physical license appears normal at first glance, the barcode itself was printed with insufficient clarity, making it unreadable by standard PDF417 barcode scanners.
Why won’t some Mississippi IDs scan?
The issue stems from a printing defect rather than a problem with ID scanning hardware or software.
Most U.S. driver’s licenses encode identity information in a PDF417 barcode located on the back of the card. Before an ID scanner can decode the information inside the barcode, it must first detect the barcode’s start pattern (sometimes called the “start zone”). This series of vertical bars tells the scanner where the barcode begins and allows it to properly initialize the decoding process.
On the affected Mississippi licenses, the printing process blurred these critical start patterns. In many cases, the blurriness also extends into the PDF417 barcode itself, preventing scanners from accurately extracting the encoded data.
Because the barcode itself is physically misprinted, the issue is not caused by the ID scanner and cannot be corrected through software updates or scanner configuration changes.
Is there a software fix?
No.
When a barcode is printed with insufficient resolution or excessive blur, the encoded information cannot be reliably recovered. Since the problem exists on the physical credential, no ID scanning software can compensate for the missing or distorted barcode elements.
Organizations that rely on electronic ID verification should expect affected Mississippi licenses to require manual inspection until the credential is replaced.
How does this affect businesses?
Businesses that routinely scan IDs may encounter higher-than-normal scan failures when presented with affected Mississippi driver’s licenses.
Common environments where this issue may occur include:
- Age verification at retail stores and hospitality venues
- Airport identity verification
- Banks and financial institutions
- Vehicle rental agencies
- Healthcare registration
- Any business using barcode-based identity verification
Employees should understand that a failed scan does not necessarily indicate a fake or altered ID. In this case, the failure may simply be the result of the known printing defect.
What should Mississippi residents do?
The Mississippi Department of Public Safety has acknowledged the printing issue and is offering affected residents a free replacement driver’s license.
If your Mississippi driver’s license consistently fails to scan, even though it is valid and undamaged, you should contact the Mississippi Department of Public Safety to determine whether your credential is part of the affected batch and request a replacement if eligible.
Key takeaways
The 2026 Mississippi driver’s license barcode issue is the result of a printing error, not a scanner malfunction or software compatibility problem. Because the PDF417 barcode itself is blurred, electronic readers cannot reliably decode the information stored on the credential.
Until affected licenses are replaced, businesses should be prepared to manually inspect these IDs when barcode scanning fails. Training employees to recognize this known issue can help reduce customer frustration while maintaining appropriate identity verification procedures.
