Fax an ID Card: Safety and Delivery Proof

To fax an ID card, scan or photograph both sides of the card, put the images in one PDF, add a cover sheet, confirm the recipient’s fax number with the recipient, and send the file through an online fax service or a fax machine. Then check the delivery confirmation and keep it. You do not need a machine or a subscription: an online service can send the PDF from any device.

An ID card carries a name, a photo, a date of birth and often an address and a document number. That makes a misdirected fax more serious than most. The steps below cover the checks to run before you send, how to make the card legible, and how to prove the fax arrived.

TL;DR

Send an ID card by fax only to a number you have confirmed with the recipient, not one copied from a search result or an old email.
Put both sides of the card in one PDF, scanned flat and enlarged, in black and white if the card has a busy background.
Add a cover sheet with sender, recipient, page count and a confidentiality notice.
You can send online with no fax machine, no account and no subscription: PerPageFax charges $0.50 per page.
Review the delivery confirmation right away and compare the number it reports with the number you intended.

Decide first whether fax is the right channel

Fax is not automatically unsafe, and it is not automatically safe either. The answer depends on who receives it and how they handle it.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says the HIPAA Privacy Rule permits covered providers to send protected health information by fax when reasonable safeguards are used. For a number the sender does not know well, one example safeguard is confirming it with the intended recipient. That is a sensible standard for any ID card, not only medical records.

Some organizations are stricter. The U.S. Army’s guide to personally identifiable information says faxing such information is prohibited except in listed circumstances, for example when a more secure means is impractical, and it recommends verifying that the correct recipient received it. If the organization asking for your ID offers a secure upload portal, ask whether it accepts that instead. If it only accepts fax, as many agencies, landlords, employers, insurers and courts still do, follow the steps below.

For a wider look at the trade-offs between channels, see our comparison of faxing and emailing sensitive documents.

Decide first whether fax is the right channel — overview diagram

What can go wrong

Doctors of BC lists three ways faxed personal information is exposed: misdialling, an unsecured receiving location, or interception, which it compares to someone listening in on a phone call. Florida State University’s guideline names unrestricted machine access and misdialled numbers as common causes of privacy breaches.

Both risks are about the end of the line, the receiving machine and the number. You control the number. You can only ask about the machine, so ask.

Find the right fax number and verify it

A wrong digit sends a copy of your ID to a stranger. Treat the number as the most important input in the whole process.

Get the number from the organization itself. Use the request letter, the official website, the application form or a phone call. Avoid third-party directories and forum posts. A thread asking which number to use for an ID is a reason to ask the organization, not an answer.
Confirm by phone or email. Say the number back to a staff member. Ask whether the fax is received on a machine in a restricted area or on an electronic system.
Ask who is expecting it. Include a name or department on the cover sheet so the fax is routed to a person.
Check the digits twice before sending. Florida State University recommends visually checking manually entered numbers before transmission.
Include the area code. Within the United States, enter the full ten digits. For another country, add the country code.

Do the same for government offices. If you are sending to the Social Security Administration, our guide to verifying a Social Security fax number explains how to confirm it before you send anything that contains an SSN.

Send only what is needed

Florida State University’s advice is to send only the protected information needed. If the request is for a driver’s license, send the license, not the whole wallet. If the organization asks for both sides, send both. Do not add other documents to the same transmission unless they were requested.

There is also a reason to keep ID images going to verified recipients only. The International Civil Aviation Organization notes that modern scanning, copying and printing technologies make it easier to create convincing counterfeit or altered travel documents. A clear image of your ID in the wrong hands is useful to someone who wants to imitate it.

Prepare a clear image of the ID card

An ID card is small, and fax compresses images to low resolution. Text that looks sharp on your phone can turn into a gray smear at the other end. Preparation matters more here than for a standard letter-size page.

Scan or photograph the card

Use a flatbed scanner if you have one. Otherwise take the photo in daylight on a plain, dark, flat surface, from directly above, with no glare on the laminate or hologram.
Capture the whole card with all four edges visible. Nothing should be cropped, and the card should sit straight.
Include both sides of a two-sided card. Many agencies reject a fax with only the front.
Do not use filters or editing apps that change the colors or add effects.

Enlarge and simplify

Because fax machines reproduce small print poorly, a common practical tip is to enlarge the card on the page to about 150% or 200% of its real size, so it takes up a good portion of the sheet. The card is still readable but no longer tiny. Place the front and back one above the other on a single letter-size page, or put each side on its own page if enlarging makes them overlap.

If the card has a patterned background, scan in black and white. Kyocera’s fax operation guide says that black-and-white scanning can remove background noise and improve character legibility. Photos on IDs will lose detail in this mode, which is normal for faxes. The recipient needs to read the text and see the card layout, and the photo only needs to be recognizable.

Check the file before sending

Open the PDF and zoom to 100%. Can you read every line, including the number and expiry date?
Check that the image is not rotated or mirrored.
Confirm the page count. Most ID faxes are one or two pages plus a cover sheet, and you pay per page, so a clean, correctly sized file saves money as well as time.

If your image is in a phone photo format or a large file, a free PDF tool that converts and merges files into a single fax-ready PDF makes this step quick.

Add a cover sheet

A cover sheet tells the receiving office what the fax is and what to do if it reached the wrong person. The University of British Columbia’s Office of the CIO recommends a cover sheet that identifies the sender, the recipient, the total number of pages, the confidentiality requirements, and what an unintended recipient should do: notify the sender and return or securely destroy the fax.

A workable cover sheet contains:

Field	What to write
To	Recipient name, department and fax number
From	Your name, phone number and email
Date	The day you send it
Pages	Total pages, including the cover sheet
Subject	For example: “Copy of photo ID for application, reference 12345”
Notice	“This fax contains confidential personal information. If you received it in error, please call the sender and destroy all copies.”

Include any reference number the organization gave you. It helps staff attach the ID to the right file.

Send the fax online without a machine or subscription

You do not need a landline or a fax machine. An online fax service takes your PDF, converts it to a fax signal and dials the number for you. With PerPageFax you do not create an account or sign up for a plan. You pay $0.50 per page at checkout.

Open the PerPageFax send page (for U.S. numbers, the fax to United States page is set up for domestic numbers).
Enter the verified fax number.
Upload the PDF with the cover sheet first, then the ID pages.
Check the page count and the total price. A cover sheet plus a two-sided ID on one page is 2 pages, so $1.00 at $0.50 per page.
Pay and send.
Watch the status. The service retries automatically if the line is busy, and a failed fax is refunded.

The service accepts PDF and common image formats, encrypts the transmission and gives you a delivery confirmation. If you want to know what to look for in an online fax service’s security, our guide to encrypted online fax, TLS and BAAs explains the terms, and how secure an online fax is for regulated documents covers the rest.

One point to understand: a cloud fax service handles your file in transit. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ 2025 privacy assessment of its own cloud fax system states that fax content is temporarily stored by the service and that senders and recipients remain responsible for accurate destination data and for validating completeness at the receiving end. The same applies to you. The service delivers what you send to the number you typed. Getting the number right is your job.

Confirm delivery and handle a failure

A fax that went out is not necessarily a fax that arrived and was readable. Run these checks as soon as the transmission ends.

The University of British Columbia advises that, after sending high-risk information, you review the fax confirmation immediately, compare the number reported with the recipient’s number, and verify the pages transmitted and received. It also says to securely destroy copies you no longer need.

Checklist after sending

The confirmation shows a successful status, not a partial one.
The number in the confirmation matches the number you verified.
The page count sent equals the page count received.
You asked the recipient to confirm they received it, and ideally that the ID is readable. Florida State University also recommends verifying receipt.
You saved the confirmation. If an agency later says it never received your ID, this is your proof. Our guide to keeping fax receipts for audits explains how long to hold on to them, and how fax status checks work explains what each status means.

If the fax fails

Read the failure reason: busy line, no answer, or not a fax line.
Do not guess a different number. Call the organization and ask for the correct one.
Once you have it confirmed, send again. With PerPageFax, a failed fax is refunded, so you are not charged for pages that did not go through.
If the confirmation shows a number you did not intend, treat it as a misdirected fax. Contact the intended recipient, and consider watching your accounts for misuse of the information on the ID.

If it arrived but is unreadable

Resend a cleaner copy. Enlarge the card more, switch to black and white, and remove any shadows. Tell the recipient to discard the earlier, unreadable copy.

Our perspective: treat the ID fax like a small checklist

Most people who need to fax an ID are not in a technical field. They are applying for a lease, a benefit or a license, and they have been told to fax a copy. We built PerPageFax for that situation: a flat $0.50 per page, no account, no plan to cancel, and a confirmation you can keep.

What we see is that the failures are rarely technical. A number is copied from the wrong place, a card is photographed at an angle, one side is missing, or nobody checks the confirmation. The cost is a rejected application and a second round of sending a personal document. A short checklist done once avoids almost all of it: verify the number, send both sides legibly, add a cover sheet, and review the confirmation. We also think you should ask for a more secure route when the recipient offers one, and use fax when it is the route required.

— Engin

When to send, and a fast way to do it

If you have a verified number, a clean PDF and a cover sheet, sending takes a few minutes. PerPageFax lets you upload the PDF, pay $0.50 per page and get delivery confirmation with no account. If you need to send from a phone or a laptop away from your desk, the process is the same.

FAQ

Is it safe to fax a copy of my ID?

It can be, if you take reasonable precautions. Confirm the number with the recipient, send only what is requested, use a cover sheet and check the confirmation. Some organizations, such as parts of the military, restrict faxing personal information to specific circumstances, so ask whether a more secure method is available first.

Can I fax an ID without a fax machine?

Yes. Scan or photograph both sides of the card, save them as a PDF and upload the file to an online fax service. PerPageFax does not require an account or subscription and charges $0.50 per page.

Should I fax the front and back of my ID?

Send both sides unless the recipient says otherwise. Many agencies require both, and the back often holds the barcode, address or expiry details. Put both on one page, enlarged, to keep the page count down, as long as each side stays readable.

How do I know the fax arrived?

Review the delivery confirmation immediately. It should show a successful status, the fax number you intended and the full page count. Then ask the recipient to confirm receipt, and keep the confirmation. If you need it for records, see our guide to downloading an IRS fax confirmation, which works the same way for other recipients.