Aruba’s ED card is submitted at edcardaruba.aw, and it costs $20. That’s the government’s mandatory sustainability fee, implemented July 1, 2024, paid directly when you complete the form. The $20 is real. The scam is everything above it.

Fraudulent sites — Immigration Aruba has specifically named arubaedcard.nl and embarkation-aruba.com among others — are charging $80 to $100 or more for the same form. Immigration Aruba issued a public advisory warning that these non-official sites sell fake ED cards at “exorbitant and inconsistent prices.” Some of those sites appear as sponsored search results above the actual government portal when you search for the form.

Here’s what makes the Aruba scam different from the Sint Maarten version or the Curaçao version: travelers expect to pay something. There IS a real fee. So when a scam site presents itself as the official portal and shows a charge of $80, the traveler’s brain does the math (“the fee is real, this must be it”) and pays. The $20 fee isn’t a bug in the scam. It’s the feature.

Quick Facts — Aruba ED Card 2026

Detail	Info
Who needs it	All air arrivals (regardless of nationality or visa status)
Americans	Visa-free; ED card + sustainability fee still required
Submission window	Within 7 days before scheduled arrival
Official cost	$20 USD (sustainability fee, mandatory for most travelers)
Official portal	edcardaruba.aw
Processing time	~10 minutes
Scam site charges	$80–$100+ per person
Known fake sites	arubaedcard.nl, embarkation-aruba.com
Government advisory	Issued by Immigration Aruba via official channels
Exemptions	Children under 8, Aruban residents, transit passengers under 24 hrs, repeat travelers returning within 1 year

In one sentence: Aruba’s ED card costs exactly $20 at edcardaruba.aw — that’s the government’s sustainability fee — and any site charging more than that is not the Aruba government.

What Is the Aruba ED Card?

The ED card — Embarkation/Disembarkation card — is Aruba’s mandatory pre-arrival form for all air arrivals. It collects your passport details, flight information, and contact address in Aruba. The portal generates a confirmation document that airlines check at departure and immigration officers process on arrival at Queen Beatrix International Airport.

What separates Aruba from most other Caribbean islands running mandatory arrival cards is the sustainability fee. When Aruba introduced the digital ED card requirement, it simultaneously attached a $20 USD per-person fee to fund environmental infrastructure — specifically, upgrades to the island’s sewage and wastewater treatment systems. According to PAX News, the fee launched July 1, 2024, and became fully mandatory for all qualifying travelers by December 6, 2024.

The sustainability fee goes to AWSS (Aruba Wastewater Sustainable Solutions) and is collected directly through the edcardaruba.aw portal. It is not optional. It is not a service charge from the portal. It is the Aruba government charging you $20 to help fund the island’s infrastructure, and it applies to every qualifying air arrival.

That distinction matters more than it might sound.

Who Needs One

All air arrivals to Aruba need an ED card. That includes Americans, Canadians, Europeans, and travelers from any other country, regardless of visa status. Americans fly to Aruba visa-free — the ED card and sustainability fee exist entirely outside that arrangement.

The exemptions from the $20 sustainability fee are specific:

• Children under 8 — exempt from the fee; ED card still required
• Aruban residents — exempt
• Transit passengers remaining in Aruba less than 24 hours under a transport agreement
• Repeat travelers returning to Aruba within one year of their last visit
• Crew members of aircraft or vessels entering on duty

Everyone else pays $20. Families with children under 8 still complete an ED card for each child — the fee exemption doesn’t mean no form. And note that the age cutoff is 8, not the 12 or 16 cutoff some travelers assume from experience with other Caribbean fee structures.

The current ED card submission window is 7 days before your scheduled arrival. Earlier than that, the form won’t accept your travel dates.

The Scam Sites

The mechanics of the Aruba ED card scam are slightly more sophisticated than the Jamaica C5 or Barbados ED card versions, where scammers charge for something that costs nothing. In Aruba, the fee is real — which gives the fraud plausible cover.

You search “Aruba ED card” or “Aruba entry form 2026.” A site appears at or near the top of results — one of the fake portals buying paid search placements. The design looks official. The terminology is accurate. The form asks for exactly what you’d expect: passport number, flight details, accommodation address. You work through it. Then a payment screen shows $80 or $90 or more. The price feels roughly plausible because you already knew there was an Aruba entry fee. You pay.

At that point, some of these operations actually do something particularly cynical: they submit your data to edcardaruba.aw — the real government portal — paying the actual $20 and pocketing the $60 to $80 difference. You receive a valid-looking confirmation, because the underlying form was completed legitimately. The financial damage is real. The identity data exposure is real (your passport number, date of birth, and travel details were submitted to an unauthorized platform). And some travelers don’t realize anything went wrong until they try to verify their submission and can’t find a record at the official portal.

Other fake sites skip even that step and generate a fraudulent confirmation document that won’t survive scrutiny by an airline or immigration officer.

Immigration Aruba’s advisory, covered by Aruba Today, specifically warns that fake sites are operating at “exorbitant and inconsistent prices” — inconsistent because there’s no official rate to anchor to. One charges $80. Another, $99. A third runs $49 with “rush processing.” The variation itself is a tell: an official government fee has one price.

The official government fee has one price: $20.

How to Complete the Aruba ED Card

Go to edcardaruba.aw — type the URL directly into your browser. The .aw domain is Aruba’s country-code top-level domain, controlled by the Aruban government. It’s the only legitimate portal. Don’t trust the first search result. Sponsored fake sites appear above the official portal in paid search placements. If a site charges more than $20, it’s not the government.

1. Navigate directly to edcardaruba.aw. Verify the .aw domain in your address bar. The $20 sustainability fee is the only charge you’ll see.

2. Enter your passport details. Full name exactly as it appears in your passport, passport number, nationality, date of birth, and passport expiry date. Match your document precisely — any discrepancy can cause delays at check-in or immigration.

3. Enter your flight information. Airline, flight number, departure date and time, departure airport. If your routing includes a connection, use the details for your final leg into Aruba.

4. Enter your accommodation in Aruba. Hotel name and address, or wherever you’re staying. Have this confirmed before you sit down to complete the form.

5. Pay the $20 sustainability fee. This is the legitimate charge for the Aruba government’s environmental infrastructure program. No other fees should appear. If additional charges appear, you’re on the wrong site.

6. Submit and save your confirmation. Email it to yourself and screenshot it. Airlines will check it at departure; Aruba immigration may ask for it on arrival.

Complete the form within the 7-day window before your scheduled arrival — not earlier, and not at the airport gate. The practical target is 24–72 hours before departure once your trip details are locked.

One household submitting four forms: four $20 fees. The exemption check for children under 8 happens automatically when you enter their date of birth. If someone in your group qualifies for another exemption — Aruban resident, return visitor within the last year — the portal handles that at the payment step.

What “Exorbitant and Inconsistent” Actually Means

Immigration Aruba’s choice of words is precise. “Exorbitant” because the scam sites charge 4–5x the actual fee. “Inconsistent” because there’s no fixed fake price — the sites set arbitrary amounts.

Across the Caribbean arrival-card scam pattern, the fake prices tend to cluster around what travelers from the destination’s primary markets consider expensive-but-plausible for a government fee. Sint Maarten’s fake portals charge up to $139.99. Curaçao fake sites run $49.99 to $156. Aruba lands in the $80–$100 range.

The Aruba version is calibrated to the island’s market. Aruba draws a relatively affluent North American travel demographic. A $90 “entry form fee” reads as an annoyance, not a red flag, to someone who just booked $400-a-night Palm Beach accommodations.

The real version costs $20. At edcardaruba.aw. One price, one site, no variation.

If You Already Used a Third-Party Site

If you paid a fake site and received a confirmation document: complete the real form now at edcardaruba.aw anyway. Travel on the fraudulent document and you risk rejection at check-in or at Aruba immigration. A five-minute re-submission plus the $20 actual fee is the correct fix. Yes, you’ll pay the $20 again.

If you paid and received nothing: dispute the charge with your card issuer immediately. These operations typically have no customer service. A card dispute is the practical recovery path.

If your passport data went to an unauthorized platform: monitor your credit and passport records. The ED card form requires your full name, passport number, date of birth, and travel dates — sufficient for identity fraud.

Aruba Is Worth the Actual Five Minutes

The arrival card headache shouldn’t obscure what Aruba actually is. Eagle Beach — wide, palm-lined, genuinely uncrowded by Caribbean standards — is one of the better stretches of sand in the region. The snorkeling at Antilla, the largest shipwreck in the Caribbean, is serious. The trade winds that make the island dry and breezy also make it reliably good weather when other destinations in the hurricane belt are getting pounded. Aruba sits outside the hurricane belt almost entirely.

The island draws roughly 1.1 million air arrivals annually. Most of them are American. Most of them search “Aruba entry form” at some point in their trip planning. Some of them hit a fake portal first.

The five-minute fix — edcardaruba.aw, $20, done — is worth doing correctly, once, well before your travel date.

The Bottom Line

What is the official Aruba ED card fee?

The Aruba ED card costs $20 USD, paid through the official portal at edcardaruba.aw. This is the government’s mandatory sustainability fee, implemented July 1, 2024. The fee is charged to all qualifying air arrivals aged 8 and older. No other charges appear at the official portal. Children under 8, Aruban residents, qualifying transit passengers, and return visitors within one year are exempt from the fee but may still need to complete the ED card form.

Any site charging more than $20 — the documented scam operations charge $80 to $100 or more — is not the Aruba government. Immigration Aruba issued a public advisory naming arubaedcard.nl and embarkation-aruba.com specifically and warning that fake portals sell ED cards at “exorbitant and inconsistent prices.”

Go to edcardaruba.aw. Type it directly. Complete the form within 7 days before your arrival. Pay exactly $20. That’s the whole process.

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ED card official portal: edcardaruba.aw. Immigration Aruba advisory: Aruba Today. Sustainability fee PSA: Aruba Today. Sustainability fee launch coverage: PAX News. Information current as of June 2026 — verify entry requirements with the Aruba government before travel.