Washington Driver License & ID Card PDF417 API

Reading Washington Card Barcodes in Real Workflows

Washington issues standard and enhanced driver licenses and ID cards, and its cannabis stores and tech campuses check large volumes of cards. Enhanced records must still be classified as license or ID. PDF417 error correction recovers some damage, but an application should never invent identity values when the barcode cannot be decoded.

One API for Washington Licenses and ID Cards

Washington cards are issued by the Washington State Department of Licensing (DOL). Licenses and identification cards carry the same AAMVA DL/ID PDF417 barcode on the back. Send the back image to the StructOCR PDF417 API: it decodes the barcode deterministically, normalizes the jurisdiction to WA, and returns document_kind as driver_license or id_card. Test a non-sensitive sample in the free PDF417 scanner. For the printed front of the card, use the Driver License OCR API.

Where This Workflow Fits

• Cannabis retail age checks: Pre-fill names, dates, and address for cannabis retail age checks and keep final confirmation in your application.
• Corporate campus visitors: Accept both Washington licenses and state ID cards, and use document_kind where only a license is acceptable.
• Cross-border travel services: Send unreadable Washington barcodes to a retake or manual review step instead of saving partial identity data.

Decode a Washington Card Back

Upload a JPG, PNG, or WebP image of the full card back. Move out of direct light or tilt the card slightly to remove glare, then upload the original camera photo.

Prerequisite: A server-side StructOCR API key and a clear image of the complete card back

curl -X POST https://api.structocr.com/v1/driver-license-pdf417 \
  -H "x-api-key: $STRUCTOCR_API_KEY" \
  -F "file=@washington-card-back.jpg"

Illustrative Washington ID Card Response

This response uses wholly fictional data to show a WA identification card. A license returns document_kind driver_license and its class fields.

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "type": "drivers_license",
    "document_kind": "id_card",
    "source": "pdf417",
    "country_code": "USA",
    "region": "WA",
    "document_number": "SAMPLE1234",
    "surname": "SAMPLE",
    "given_names": "ALEX MORGAN",
    "first_name": "ALEX",
    "middle_name": "MORGAN",
    "sex": "X",
    "date_of_birth": "1990-01-15",
    "date_of_issue": "2025-01-15",
    "date_of_expiry": "2030-01-15",
    "address": "100 EXAMPLE AVE",
    "city": "SAMPLE CITY",
    "postal_code": "00000",
    "vehicle_class": null,
    "restrictions": null,
    "endorsements": null,
    "document_discriminator": "SAMPLE-DISCRIMINATOR",
    "issuer_identification_number": null,
    "aamva_version": 10,
    "jurisdiction_version": 0
  }
}