PNGDAC Fees and Processing Time Explained (2026)

What the official PNGDAC costs

The official PNG Digital Arrival Card is free of charge when you submit it yourself on Papua New Guinea's ICA portal (https://ica.gov.pg). There is no government fee for the standard submission. Any website charging you money is a third-party service company - including ours.

What an application service charges - and why

Third-party services like ours charge a service fee ($19.00 per application) to do the work for you: completing the form from your details, verifying the data against your passport, submitting inside the official window, and delivering the confirmation to your inbox within 24 hours, with support if anything needs correcting.

Whether that is worth it depends on you. If you are comfortable with government forms and have your documents ready, submit it yourself for free. Travellers use our service when they are short on time, worried about typos causing immigration problems, managing applications for a family or group, or simply do not want another form in their trip preparation.

How long processing takes

The official PNGDAC itself confirms instantly or within a few hours by email. Our service delivers the completed, filed card to your email within 24 hours of receiving your details - and we plan the submission so it lands correctly within 72 hours before arrival in Papua New Guinea.

The timing constraint is not processing speed, it is the window: an early submission can fall outside the allowed period, and a late one may not clear before your flight. Timing, not speed, is where submissions go wrong.

The 3-day window in practice

You can only submit within 72 hours before arrival in Papua New Guinea. For a Saturday arrival, that typically means Thursday at the earliest. Set a phone reminder for the day your window opens rather than the day before your flight - and remember airline check-in staff may ask for the confirmation before you even board.

Our fee, in plain terms

$19.00 per application, one PNGDAC, delivered within 24 hours, with correction support if anything needs fixing. We are a private, independent application assistance service - not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any government agency. The official PNGDAC can always be submitted free of charge at https://ica.gov.pg.