🇵🇬Papua New Guinea

How your entry route is decided

1. Check whether your passport still qualifies for visa on arrival. A limited list survives - Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada, Singapore and most Pacific island states, plus diplomatic and official passports of selected countries. Everyone else, including the United States, Australia, India and every EU member state, must be authorised before departure. Even where visa on arrival technically exists, the ICA and the airlines have moved to a documents-before-boarding posture, so treat it as a fallback rather than a plan.
2. Pick the visa class. Eligible nationalities apply for an Easy Visitor Permit (EVP), issued for 30 or 60 days depending on nationality. Everyone else applies for Tourist (Own Itinerary), which allows 60 days.
3. Apply online. The only official channel is https://evisa.ica.gov.pg/. You will need a scan of the passport data page, a confirmed return or onward ticket, and a card to pay the lodgement fee - USD 50 for the standard classes. Commercial sites advertising PNG visas charge two to three times that for filing the same form.
4. Wait, then print. Easy Visitor Permits typically come back in 24 to 72 hours, tourist visas in 3 to 5 working days, and up to 10 working days at busy times. You are issued an Entry Permit which you show at check-in and again at immigration in Port Moresby.

Entry formalities that apply to everyone

• PNG Digital Arrival Card (PNGDAC): Mandatory for every traveller since 1 October 2025 - citizens, residents and visitors alike. It replaced the paper landing card, it is free, and you file it at https://pngdac.ica.gov.pg/. The form opens 72 hours before arrival; complete it inside that window and you get a confirmation email with a QR code to show at check-in and at the border. If you did not file it, there are Digital Arrival Kiosks in the terminal at Jacksons, but they queue badly when several flights land together.
• Passport validity: At least 6 months from the date of entry, checked strictly at immigration in Port Moresby.
• Onward ticket: A confirmable departure ticket is checked at the border, not just at the visa stage.
• Customs allowances: New goods to a value of PGK 1,000 for adults and PGK 500 for under-18s; 2.25 litres of alcohol; 200 to 250 cigarettes or 250 g of tobacco or 50 cigars; 1 litre of perfume. Currency and bearer instruments above PGK 20,000 must be declared in writing.
• No local registration: Visitors on a tourist permit do not report to a police station after arrival.

What actually matters in practice

The mistake that recurs in traveller reports is assuming visa on arrival covers you. Passengers from ineligible countries get stopped at check-in in Brisbane, Cairns, Manila or Singapore and never reach Port Moresby at all - the airline is liable for carrying them, so it will not take the risk.

Two practical habits worth adopting: apply at least two weeks out, because the ICA portal has periods of downtime and there is no expedited channel; and carry paper printouts of the entry permit and the PNGDAC confirmation. Phone signal inside the terminal is unreliable and officials will ask to see the documents.

Jacksons International Airport, Port Moresby (POM)

Jacksons is about 8 km from the government district at Waigani and 12 km from the coastal downtown around Ela Beach. Unlike almost anywhere else in this guide, the choice here is a safety decision rather than a budget one.

• Hotel transfer: The right answer. The established hotels - Airways, Gateway, The Stanley, Grand Papua - run private air-conditioned vans for guests, often meeting you inside the secured perimeter. It is either included in the room rate or costs PGK 50 to PGK 100. Book it when you book the room and reconfirm by email the day before.
• Pre-booked contract taxi: Acceptable if arranged in advance through your accommodation. Waigani or downtown runs PGK 80 to PGK 150, 15 to 30 minutes. Unbooked cars touting at the terminal are not the same thing and should be declined.
• PMV minibuses: The public network stops outside the airport grounds on the Hubert Murray Highway and costs PGK 1 to 2. Do not use it from the airport with luggage. Foreign missions advise against it outright because of the risk of armed robbery, and walking out to the road to reach it is itself the exposed part.
• Rail: There is none anywhere in the country.

Nadzab Tomodachi International Airport, Lae (LAE)

The second international airport, serving Lae in Morobe province, about 45 km north-west of the city.

• Transfers are almost entirely hotel minibuses - the Lae International Hotel among others. The run down the Nadzab Express Highway takes 45 to 60 minutes and costs PGK 100 to PGK 200. There is no rank of taxis waiting at the terminal, so arriving without a booking leaves you stranded.

Which option suits which traveller

• Solo traveller: Book accommodation that includes an airport pickup, and treat that as a filter when choosing where to stay. Walking out of the airport grounds is not a reasonable option.
• Family: A private hotel van collecting you airside, so nobody is standing outside a terminal with bags and children while a vehicle is found.
• Night arrival: Stay inside the terminal until your named driver is physically present. Do not step out into unlit areas to look for them.
• On a budget: The saving is not available here. The nearest thing is booking one of the secured hotels in the 7 Mile area beside the airport, most of which include a free transfer, and moving on in daylight.

Safety and the most common risks

Urban Papua New Guinea has a serious violent-crime problem, driven by organised street gangs known locally as raskols. Port Moresby, Lae and Mount Hagen are the areas of concern. This is not the pickpocket-and-overcharging risk profile of most destinations, and it should change how you plan rather than just how alert you are.

• Official advice: Both the Australian Smartraveller service and the UK FCDO advise against walking the streets of Port Moresby and Lae after dark, and recommend that movement around the cities happens in locked vehicles with a known driver.
• Unofficial transport: Accepting a lift from someone soliciting outside the terminal has led to vehicles picking up additional passengers en route and the traveller being robbed. Only use a driver arranged through your accommodation.
• Markets: Bag-snatching and phone theft by organised groups at busy markets, Gordons Market in Port Moresby especially.
• Unofficial guides: People offering to escort you around a site or a town, then demanding payment afterwards. Arrange guiding through your accommodation or a tour operator.
• What reduces risk most: Not being out on foot after dark, not carrying a visible phone or bag on the street, keeping vehicle doors locked and windows up in traffic, and staying in guarded accommodation. Travellers on r/travel who have spent time in the country converge on the same advice.

Outside the cities - in the highlands on an organised trek, in the islands, at the dive resorts - the picture is very different and the country is rewarding. The risk is concentrated in the urban centres you have to pass through to get anywhere else.

Health, insurance and where to be treated

• Vaccinations: A yellow fever certificate is required if you are arriving from a country with a risk of transmission. Hepatitis A and B, typhoid, tetanus and polio are recommended; check with a travel clinic 6 to 8 weeks before departure.
• Malaria and dengue: Transmission is year-round below 1,800 m, which includes Port Moresby, Lae and the coast and islands. Take prophylaxis - Malarone or doxycycline are the usual choices - and use a repellent with a high DEET content, morning and evening especially. Dengue circulates in the same areas and there is no prophylaxis for it, so the repellent is doing double duty.
• Tap water: Not drinkable. Bottled or boiled only, and that includes ice and brushing your teeth outside a good hotel.
• Medical care: Pacific International Hospital (PIH) at 3 Mile in Port Moresby is the private facility used by foreign visitors, with an emergency department and intensive care. The public Port Moresby General Hospital is chronically short of supplies. Serious cases are stabilised locally and flown out.
• Insurance: Your policy must explicitly cover aeromedical evacuation to Australia - Cairns or Brisbane. In-country capability for major trauma or a cardiac event is limited, and an unplanned medical flight costs more than any holiday. This is the single most important thing to get right before you travel.

Emergency numbers

• Police: 000 (112 also connects from a mobile), or +675 324 4300 for Port Moresby
• Ambulance (St John): 111, or +675 7111 4000
• Fire: 110

Be realistic about what these can do. Emergency response is slow and patchy outside the main centres, and in Port Moresby the practical first call in an incident is your hotel's security desk, which has vehicles and radios and knows the area. Save that number alongside these when you check in.

Register your trip with your own embassy or high commission before you travel - Australia, the UK and the US all maintain missions in Port Moresby, and consular help is meaningfully easier to obtain if they already know you are in the country.

Your travel insurer's 24-hour assistance line belongs in the same list, because aeromedical evacuation to Australia is the mechanism behind any serious medical outcome here.