DI Card Curacao

DI Card (Digital Immigration Card)

Any tourist who wants to enter Curacao will have to show a Digital Immigration Card (DI Card) at customs upon arrival at Hato Airport. How and what with the Digital Immigration Card we explain here.

DI Card Curacao

The Digital Immigration Card (DI Card) is required for every tourist who wants to travel to Curacao. You need this DI Card to pass through customs upon arrival at Hato Airport in Curacao. The DI Card is mandatory for anyone (regardless of age) who wants to travel to Curacao and is not registered as a resident of Curacao. Being born in Curacao or not makes no difference here, it is about being a resident of Curacao or not.

Apply online

The DI Card, also called Embarkation Card, is the modern online replacement for the piece of paper you used to be handed out on the plane by the flight attendants to fill out when and why you would be in Curacao and where you are staying. We don’t do that paper on the plane these days, this only goes online. But everything else is still the same: personal info (from your passport), your flight details and your accommodation.

DI Card Completion

E-gates Curacao

One advantage of the online DI Card is that it allows you to go through the E-gates upon arrival at Curacao. You then do not have to queue to go past a customs officer, but you can go through the gates with the automated process. This usually goes much faster, so you can enjoy your first cocktail on Curacao just a little sooner!

Not for children

Unfortunately, the E-gates are not possible if you are traveling with children 17 yr. old. or younger. Because children’s faces may soon differ from the passport photo, it is not possible for the computer to properly match children in this process. So if you are traveling with children, you will have to pass by the “old-fashioned” customs officer.

And for the record, you have to arrange the DI Card anyway, even if you don’t want to go through the E-gates.

e-gates Curacao Hato Airport
e-gates at Curacao Hato Airport

DI Card: where & when

Apply for the DI Card online at dicardcuracao.com. You can apply for the DI Card starting 7 days before departure, but since it obviously only makes sense to do this when you’re actually going, our advice is to do it after you’ve checked in online, usually about 24 hours before departure. Then you have all the necessary information together and you can fill everything out fairly easily. If you do this earlier, you have a chance that your flight will still be changed and you will have to go back to adjust the DI Card.

DI Card Completion

Arrange excursions before departure

In Curacao, of course, you want to do some fun things. But some excursions are fully booked (well) in advance, such as Klein Curacao, swimming with dolphins and Aquafari. Better arrange this before you leave for Curacao. Most popular excursions:

jetski Curacao Spaanse Water
Guided Jet Ski Tour

Jet Ski Tour

1h
Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri
Caracasbay
$ 135
Aquafari Curacao onderwater scooter
Diving without training

Aquafari

1 hour
every day
Boca Sami
$ 139
Stadswandeling Otrobanda Curacao Jacqueline
Best City Walk 2024

City Walk Curacao

1.5 – 2 hours
Monday to Saturday
Otrobanda or Scharloo
$ 24
Klein Curacao beachhouse Miss Ann
Beachhouse with sunbeds

Klein Curacao | Miss Ann

10 hours
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday
Santa Barbara beach
$ 130
; 5 (1 beoordelingen)
Dolphin Encounter Curacao dolfijnen
Fun for kids

Dolphin Encounter

1,5 hour
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday
Mambo Beach
$ 114
See all Curacao excursions

Personal data via passport photo

The DI Card offers a nice little convenience: you can upload a photo of your passport and that will automatically extract and fill in all the necessary data from the photo. Convenient, fast and it prevents typos. But … experience shows that it is far from always possible to upload the photo and thus have the data filled in automatically. No problem, you can always do the entry manually as well.

Use previously supplied info

Have you ever filled out a DI Card for Curacao before? That’s great, now you can retrieve that data and it’s a snap. When you go to fill out the DI Card, the first question you get is whether you have filled out the DI Card before. So click “Yes, I have filled this out before” here. If you then enter your email, date of birth and passport no. enter, your data will be pulled from the database and you won’t have to enter it again. All you need to fill in now are the new flight details and your accommodation. And at the very bottom, to confirm, you have to enter your email again and check that you are not a robot. Nice and simple, nice and fast.
Note: Think of this primarily as a tool to help request the DI Card more quickly on repeat visits. Have you been to Curacao before but can’t recall the DI Card from that trip from the database? No problem, just refill the DI Card. You will not then have a problem because you might end up in the database twice, but that is o.k.

What does the DI Card look like?

DI Card Curacao customs
DI Card Curacao

What else?

Can you travel to Curacao with just the Digital Immigration Card or do you have more to arrange as a travel document? As a tourist, you need:
1- obviously a valid passport
2- then so does this DI Card
3- a return ticket. Before you can enter Curacao, they want to make sure you can also leave the island again. This rule is o f preventing Curacao from having to take you in if you run out of money.

Plus, the DI Card is purely informational for Curacao Customs about who is coming to the island at what time. It offers no assurance that by granting you this document you will enter Curacao. That decision is made at customs in Curacao.

DI Card Curacao immigration card customs
DI Card application website

Frequently asked questions regarding DI Card

Waar regel je de DI Card?

You can arrange for the DI Card online at www.dicardcuracao.com.

Ik ben op Curacao geboren, moet ik een DI Card regelen?

The DI Card is mandatory for anyone not enrolled in Curacao as a resident. The fact that you were born on Curaçao makes no difference: if you live outside Curaçao, you are ‘just’ a tourist for the purposes of this DI Card; so is Yu di Korsou.

Moet de DI Card ook ingevuld worden voor kinderen?

Yes, the DI Card is mandatory for anyone who wants to travel to Curacao but is not a resident of Curacao. With children, be sure to enter the parents’ contact information.

Wanneer moet je de DI Card invullen?

Our advice is to arrange the DI Card after you have checked in for the plane. Then it is certain that you will go and you will not do this unnecessarily or wrongly because your ticket will still be cancelled or changed. So usually this is within 30 hours before departure. If you want to do it earlier you can do it from 7 days before departure.

Ik krijg de website in het Engels, is het ook in het Nederlands beschikbaar?

In the very first screen, you can change the language at the top right. Do this here, further down the form is not possible.

Moet je de DI Card ook printen?

After completing the DI Card, you will receive an email within minutes containing a pdf file, which is your personal DI Card. You must print these and have them with you during the trip. It can be checked at your airport of departure, if you do not have it on paper with you then you can be refused for the flight. Digital showing on phone or laptop will not be accepted.

Ik heb een foutje gemaakt bij het invullen van de DI Card, kan ik de gegevens nog aanpassen?

A mistake can always happen. But fortunately for the DI Card, this is easy to correct:
– Just go to dicardcuracao.com again
– Click the green button ‘Fill out your Digital Immigration Card here‘
– Choose the right blue button ‘Yes, I have filled this out before‘
– Entering your email, date of birth and passport number will retrieve your information from the database. Note: If the error is made correctly in one of these three fields, please also type that error now or your data will not be matched correctly.
– You get to see your data from the database. Make the correction and save the data again. It has now been corrected.

HELP!! Ik sta op Schiphol en heb geen DI Card, wat nu?!?

First of all, don’t panic. You can also arrange for a DI Card shortly before departure. Just go to dicardcuracao.com and fill out the DI Card. You will get it in your mailbox within minutes. To print them, you can go to a Service Point at your airport. Filling out the DI Card will probably be done on your phone so it’s a little trickier than at home on the computer. Count on about 10 minutes p.p. for this; printing can be done in no time but obviously depends in part on how busy the Service Point is.

Kun je de Immigration Card ook nog als papiertje in het vliegtuig invullen?

No, you can’t. The only option for the Immigration Card is the Digital (!) Immigration Card.

Ik ga emigreren naar Curacao en ben in Nederland uitgeschreven als inwoner. Moet ik nog een DI Card regelen?

Yes, we still have to. For customs on Curacao, there are only two clear options: you are a resident of Curacao, or you are a tourist. And until you are formally registered as a resident of Curacao, you are still a tourist, regardless of your intention to live in Curacao and never leave the island, so to speak. The status you may or may not have in the country of origin does not matter in this regard. If you have already applied for a VRW then it makes no difference: you are still a tourist until you are registered at Kranshi as a resident of Curacao.

Nothing else forgotten?

Have you otherwise arranged everything for a wonderful vacation? Just to be sure, go through this Curacao checklist and you should be fine!

Curacao vacation checklist