PNG Digital Arrival Card Requirements (2026): What to Prepare

The short answer on PNGDAC requirements

The PNG Digital Arrival Card (PNGDAC) requirements come down to information, not documents. You need a valid passport, the flight number of the leg that physically lands in Papua New Guinea, the name and address of where you will stay, your contact details, and a list of the countries you visited in the previous two weeks. That is the entire list.

There is nothing to apply for in advance, nothing to upload except optionally your passport, and nothing to pay. The official form is free at https://ica.gov.pg and takes about three to five minutes per person when your details are ready. It has been the entry requirement since 1 May 2025, when it replaced the paper TM6 card.

If you are unsure whether the requirement applies to you at all, check our do I need a Papua New Guinea arrival card guide first — the short version: it applies to every non-PNG national entering by air, land, or sea.

The five blocks of the PNGDAC form

The form asks for information in five blocks. Here is what each one wants:

What the PNGDAC form asks for, block by block

• **Passport information.** Passport number, full name as printed in the passport, nationality, and date of birth.
• **Personal information.** Contact details and the email address where your confirmation and QR code will be sent.
• **Travel information.** Flight number of the leg that physically lands in Papua New Guinea, arrival date, port of entry, and purpose of travel.
• **Accommodation in Papua New Guinea.** Hotel name and address, or the address where you will stay.
• **Health declaration.** Countries you visited or stayed in during the previous two weeks, plus extra health questions if triggered.

Passport requirements in detail

Enter your passport details exactly as they appear on the biodata page. Full name, passport number, nationality, and date of birth must match character for character, because the officer at immigration scans your passport and matches it against your card.

The portal gives you three ways to fill the passport block. The fastest is the MRZ scan: point your phone camera at the two lines of characters at the bottom of the biodata page, and the portal reads the number, name, nationality, and date of birth for you. If the scan fails — glossy passport covers and worn pages sometimes cause that — you can upload a photo of the page or type manually.

One locked-field rule to know now: name, passport number, nationality, and date of birth cannot be changed after submission. Everything else can be fixed later with “Update Arrival Card”, but these four mean a brand-new card. Get them right the first time.

Travel and accommodation details

The travel block wants the flight that physically lands in Papua New Guinea. Connecting through Doha, Singapore, or Kuala Lumpur first? Use the flight number of the final leg — the one that touches down at Suvarnabhumi, Don Mueang, Phuket, or wherever you arrive. The card is matched against the manifest of that flight. You also enter your arrival date, your port of entry, and your purpose of travel.

The accommodation block wants a hotel name and address, or the address of the place you are staying. Have your booking confirmation open in another tab so you can copy the exact name and address rather than typing from memory. Mismatched addresses are one of the most common group-filing errors when one person retypes the hotel five times.

If your plans change after you submit, both the flight number and the accommodation can be corrected through the update flow — keep the confirmation email, because it holds the card number the update flow asks for.

How the health declaration requirement works

Every applicant lists the countries visited or stayed in during the two weeks before arrival. The system then checks that travel history, plus your boarding country, nationality, and flight details, against a watchlist maintained by the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH).

If nothing matches, the health section stays short and you move on — this is the outcome for the large majority of travelers. If something matches, typically travel connected with yellow-fever-risk countries in Africa and South America, the portal expands the block with extra health questions. Answer them honestly; they exist to protect public health, not to screen out tourists.

The watchlist can change, so do not rely on a published country list from a blog, including this one. The portal decides at submission time: if you are not prompted, there is nothing extra to answer.

What you do NOT need

The requirement list is short, so the non-requirements are worth stating plainly:

Not required for the PNGDAC

• No visa — the card does not require one, and it never replaces one.
• No mandatory photo upload — the passport scan is optional; manual entry works.
• No printing — the QR code on your phone is enough at immigration.
• No payment — the official form is free.
• No advance application window beyond 3 days before arrival — earlier submissions are rejected, not queued.
• No separate application for children added in your group submission.

Requirements for children and groups

Children and infants on foreign passports need their own cards — the requirement attaches to the passport, not the age. The practical route is group filing: one person uses “Add Other Travelers” to add each family member, up to 10 travelers per submission, and “Same as Previous Traveler” copies the shared flight and accommodation details between them.

A family member, tour operator, or travel agent may submit on behalf of others. Every traveler's passport details still need to be entered correctly, and all confirmations go to the single email entered on the form, so the filer holds everyone's proof.

For the full button-by-button walkthrough, see our how to apply for the PNGDAC guide.

Common mistakes to avoid before you submit

Four errors account for most rejected or mismatched cards:

The four most common PNGDAC mistakes

• Typos in the passport number or name — the four fields you cannot fix later.
• Using the connecting flight number instead of the final leg into Papua New Guinea.
• Entering the departure city's date instead of the arrival date in Papua New Guinea across a midnight or time-zone boundary.
• A hotel address typed from memory that does not match the booking.

Ready to file?

Gather the passport, the final flight number, and the hotel confirmation, then submit within 3 days before arrival at https://ica.gov.pg — free, about five minutes. If you'd rather hand the whole thing off, we file it for you: $19 flat, confirmation emailed within 24 hours, full refund if we fail to deliver. Either way, the requirements above are everything you need.

For the complete system picture — timing, updates, and what happens at immigration — see our PNG Digital Arrival Card guide.

Frequently Asked Questions