Papua New Guinea Arrival Card for Children and Babies: 2026 Guide

The short answer: yes, babies included

Yes — the Papua New Guinea arrival card for children works exactly like the one for adults. Every foreign passport holder entering Papua New Guinea needs a PNG Digital Arrival Card (PNGDAC), including infants, and the rule has been mandatory since 1 May 2025. There is no minimum age, no child discount, and no exemption for small travelers.

The reason is structural: the card attaches to the passport, not to the person's age. PNG immigration wants a record of every foreign arrival, and a four-month-old on a British passport is one of them.

The good news is that filing for children is easy. A parent adds each child to a single family submission, and the official form is free at https://ica.gov.pg. The full system picture is in our PNG Digital Arrival Card guide.

There is no minimum age because the card attaches to the passport, not to the traveler's age. The PNGDAC replaced the paper TM6 card that used to be handed out on planes, and the old form covered children too — one passport, one card. Age appears nowhere in the requirement, so an infant and a grandparent file identical forms built from identical information.

This is also why lap babies are not an exception. A baby flying on a parent's lap usually has no airline seat and sometimes no ticket of their own, but they always have a passport, and the passport is what the requirement reads. At immigration, the officer scans each passport and expects a card behind each one. What differs for children is only who does the typing — which is the next section.

Who fills in the form for a child

A parent or guardian files on the child's behalf, and the portal is built for exactly that. There is no account, no login, and no age gate — an adult completes the five form blocks using the child's passport details: passport number, full name as printed in the passport, nationality, and date of birth.

A family member, tour operator, or travel agent may also submit for others. The one thing to watch is the email address: the confirmation with every traveler's QR code goes to the single email entered on the form, so the filer holds everyone's proof at immigration.

If you are filing for a child, keep their passport open beside you. The fields that cannot be corrected later — name, passport number, nationality, date of birth — are exactly the fields where a child's details get mistyped.

How to file for a family: Add Other Travelers

One person files for everyone in one sitting. On the traveler information step:

Filing a family PNGDAC in one submission

• Enter the first traveler — yourself, or whichever adult you start with.
• Click “Add Other Travelers” for each additional family member, including each child and infant.
• Enter each child's passport details from their own passport — never from the parent's.
• Use “Same as Previous Traveler” to copy the shared flight, arrival date, and accommodation onto each child's card.
• Review every passport number character by character, then submit once.
• All QR codes arrive in one confirmation email, at the email address you entered.

Groups, limits, and time

One submission covers up to 10 travelers. For a family of five, the official FAQ's estimate of three to five minutes per person shrinks to roughly 15 minutes total, because “Same as Previous Traveler” means the flight and hotel are typed once.

The timing rule is unchanged by children: submit within 3 days before the family's arrival date, after flights and hotel are final. Arriving Monday 16 June 2026 means the window opens Saturday 13 June. One or two days before departure is the sweet spot — it matters more for families, where there are more passport numbers to get right.

The button-by-button walkthrough, including the passport MRZ scan that reads a child's biodata page with your camera, is in our how to apply for the PNGDAC guide.

Newborns, lap babies, and passport validity

The newborn edge case is the only one that needs sequencing: a baby cannot have a card until they have a passport. Passports for infants are ordinary applications with ordinary processing times, and those times vary by country, so if your baby is due shortly before the trip, build slack into the plan — passport first, then the PNGDAC within 3 days before arrival. We state this cautiously because we cannot promise your passport office's timeline; airlines also require a passport for an infant to fly, so the card is never the first deadline.

Lap babies, covered above, need their own card with their own passport details. Enter the same flight as the parent; the ticket situation does not appear on the form.

On passport validity: the card itself only records what is printed in the passport — validity is an entry requirement, and Papua New Guinea generally expects six months remaining. Check your child's passport expiry with your airline or the PNG embassy well before you fly.

Your family checklist

Run the family through this table before you submit:

File it yourself, or have us do it

The official form is free, and a parent with the passports on the kitchen table is exactly who it was built for. If you would rather hand it off, that is our core job: one order covers the family, and we match every card to every passport — $19 per application, confirmation within 24 hours, full refund if we fail to deliver. Start your family application.

Frequently Asked Questions