The Dominican Republic requires every traveller to complete an electronic entry form before arriving. It is free, it takes about ten minutes, and a surprising number of people discover it exists while standing in the immigration hall.
It is also required again on the way out, which catches even people who did it properly on arrival.
What it actually is
The E-Ticket is a form on the Dominican government's migration website: eticket.migracion.gob.do. That is the only address. It replaced the paper immigration and customs cards that used to be handed out on the plane.
You fill in passport details, flight details, where you are staying, and a short customs declaration. When you submit it you get a QR code. That code is the thing that matters — immigration scans it.
Save it as a screenshot. Airport wifi is not a plan.
The three things people get wrong
It is free. The official form at eticket.migracion.gob.do costs nothing. A whole industry of lookalike sites will complete it on your behalf for twenty to fifty dollars — they are typing your details into the same free government form. Type the address in rather than clicking a search ad: the paid results above the real one are the resellers. If the page you are on wants a card number, you are on the wrong page.
It is required in both directions. Entry and exit. The exit one is the forgotten half: you did the arrival form weeks ago, you are now checking out of a hotel, and nobody reminds you. Do both at the same time if your dates are fixed, or set yourself a reminder for the day before you fly home.
One form covers your whole group. A family travelling together completes a single submission with everyone added inside it. Five separate forms is a common and entirely unnecessary mistake.
When to do it
You can submit it up to 72 hours before your flight. Earlier than that and the system will not take it.
The practical advice is: the evening before you fly, with your passports and your hotel address in front of you. That is when you have everything you need and no time pressure.
What you need in front of you
- Passport for every traveller — number, issue and expiry dates
- Flight number and date, both directions
- The address you are staying at. A hotel name is usually enough; a full address is better. If you are moving around, the first one is what they want.
- Anything you are declaring — most people declare nothing, but the questions about cash over ten thousand dollars and about agricultural products are real questions with real answers
The tourist card question
You may read that the Dominican Republic charges a tourist card fee of ten dollars. For most travellers this is now bundled into the airfare and there is nothing separate to pay on arrival.
It is a genuinely confusing area because the old process involved queueing to buy a card before immigration, and a lot of travel advice still describes that. If your ticket was bought from a major airline, assume it is included and be pleasantly unsurprised.
What happens at the airport
You show the QR code — on your phone or printed — at immigration. It is scanned, your passport is stamped, and that is the process.
Without it, you are directed to a desk or a bank of tablets to complete it there. Nobody is fined and nobody is refused. It is simply a queue you joined unnecessarily after eight hours on a plane.
Leaving
Same form, same site, exit version. Do it the day before you fly out.
The one scenario worth planning for: if you are leaving from a different airport than you arrived at — flying into Punta Cana and out of Santo Domingo, for example — make sure the exit form has the correct departure airport. It is an easy field to autofill wrongly.
Ask someone who is there
Entry requirements are the kind of thing that changes without much announcement, and the sites that rank for them are often describing the process from two years ago.
If you want to check what is actually happening at the airport this month, Roavi lets you message someone who lives in the Dominican Republic and ask. No commission, no booking — you just talk to a person who was at that airport recently.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Dominican Republic E-Ticket free?
Yes. The official form is at eticket.migracion.gob.do and costs nothing. Search results are full of sites that will fill it in for you for $20–50 — they are typing the same information into the same free form. If a page asks for payment, you are not on the official one.Do I need a separate E-Ticket to leave?
Yes, and this is the part that catches people. It is required in both directions. Plenty of travellers complete it before arriving, forget entirely, and are filling it in on airport wifi on the way home.Does each person need their own?
No. One form covers everyone travelling on the same itinerary — a family of five completes one, not five. You add each traveller inside the same submission.When can I fill it in?
Up to 72 hours before your flight. Doing it earlier is not possible, and doing it at the airport is possible but stressful if the wifi is slow.What if I arrive without one?
You will be sent to complete it before you can clear immigration. It is not a fine or a refusal — it is a queue, at the end of a flight, with your luggage. That is the whole reason to do it beforehand.
