Malaysia Digital Arrival Card: Step-by-Step MDAC Guide

The Malaysia Digital Arrival Card is a free pre-arrival registration for foreign visitors, completed at imigresen-online.imi.gov.my within three days before arrival. Every foreign traveller needs one, children included, unless they fall into an exempt group such as Singapore citizens. It records your passport, flight and first address, but it is not a visa.

The Immigration Department's eligibility notice is short: all foreign citizens travelling to Malaysia must complete the MDAC, and it has been mandatory since 1 January 2024, except for the groups listed below.

That covers visa-free tourists, visa holders, business visitors, families and children, whether you arrive by air, land or sea. Each foreign traveller needs their own registration because the form is tied to one passport number. A parent or trip organiser can fill it in on someone else's behalf, as long as every detail matches that person's passport.

Submit it within three days before your arrival in Malaysia. Earlier than that, the portal will not accept your trip.

The registration form itself states that your trip must be within three days, including the date of submission. In practice, that means the day you submit counts as day one.

Use the date you land in Malaysia, not the date you leave home. On an overnight long-haul flight, those can be different days. If the portal rejects your date, wait a day and try again rather than guessing a different arrival date.

Practical timing: submit once your flight and first night's accommodation are confirmed, and before you leave for the airport. Airport Wi-Fi and roaming can fail just when you need them.

Yes. The official MDAC registration form has no payment step at all, so any site asking for a "processing" or "express" fee is not the government portal.

The only official web address is the Malaysia Digital Arrival Card portal run by the Immigration Department of Malaysia. Since January 2026, the Immigration Department says you can also complete the MDAC through its official MyNIISe app.

Some third-party sites sell "form-filling" help. Paying them adds nothing: the official form is free, short and in English, and a mistake made by someone else is still your problem at the counter.

Have three things open before you begin: your passport, your flight or transport booking and the full address of your first accommodation.

The current registration form asks for:

The form fits on a single page. These steps follow the fields in the order they appear.

1. Open the official portal. Go to imigresen-online.imi.gov.my/mdac/main and choose Registration. Do not click a search ad.
2. Enter your name exactly as printed in your passport. No nicknames, titles or shortened names. Copy the order from the passport's data page.
3. Enter the passport number carefully. Watch for the letter O versus zero and the letter I versus one. Use the passport you will physically hand over at immigration, not an old one or a national ID number.
4. Choose nationality and place of birth. Nationality is the country that issued your passport, not where you live. Dual nationals use the details of the passport they will travel on.
5. Add sex and passport expiry date. Malaysia's entry rules require a passport valid for six months or more from the date of entry, so check yours before you submit.
6. Enter an email address and mobile number you can use abroad. The portal uses your email for the PIN that lets you check the registration later, so avoid temporary inboxes.
7. Enter arrival and departure dates. Arrival is the day you land in Malaysia. Departure is the day you plan to leave Malaysia for another country, and it should match your onward ticket.
8. Add the flight, vessel or transport number. Use the service that actually arrives in Malaysia. On a London to Kuala Lumpur trip via Doha, that is the Doha to Kuala Lumpur flight.
9. Select the mode of travel and last port of embarkation. Choose air, land or sea. The last port is where your final leg into Malaysia starts, which is Doha in the example above.
10. Select the accommodation type and enter your first address. Use the full address of the first place you will sleep, with state, postcode and city. The address field accepts letters and numbers only, so leave out symbols. Multi-city travellers only need the first stop.
11. Check every field against your passport and booking, then complete the slider check and submit.
12. Save the confirmation offline. Keep a screenshot or PDF of the confirmation on your phone, plus any email the portal sends you, so you can show it without data.

At the counter, you present your passport and your MDAC registration for verification, which is exactly what the Immigration Department's own infographic tells visitors to do on arrival.

The MDAC is required at every international entry point, not just airports. That includes the two Johor land checkpoints with Singapore and ferry terminals.

For a road crossing, choose land as the mode of travel and enter the bus, coach or vehicle details you have. For a ferry, enter the vessel or service number shown on your ticket.

Singapore citizens are exempt. Everyone else crossing from Singapore, including foreign residents of Singapore on a day trip to Johor Bahru, needs an MDAC for each entry unless they fall into another exempt group.

Your MDAC is checked against your passport. Depending on your nationality, that happens at a staffed counter or an automated gate.

Use the portal's Check Registration page first. It asks for your passport number, nationality and PIN, so you can see exactly what was recorded.

If you lost the PIN, the portal's Forgot PIN function sends a new one to your registered email, and a reset is allowed once a day. That is another reason to type your email carefully.

If a key detail is wrong, such as the passport number, name, nationality or arrival date, and you cannot correct it, submit a fresh MDAC with the right details while you are still inside the three-day window. Do the same if your flight changes to a different day. For anything the portal cannot resolve, use the enquiry link on the official MDAC page rather than a third-party "help" service.