The Bahamas quietly joined the digital-arrival-card wave on May 5, 2026, when the Ministry of Tourism, Investments and Aviation announced the soft launch of the Bahamas Digital Arrival Card, or BDAC. It folds the paper immigration card and the customs declaration into a single online form. Sound familiar? It should. This site has covered the same shift in Australia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, India, and the Philippines. The Bahamas is late to this particular party, and — this is the part that matters if you’ve got a trip booked — it’s not actually at the party yet. It’s standing in the doorway.

This is also the first time this site has written about Bahamas entry requirements at all, despite having covered Jamaica’s C5 form and the Dominican Republic’s e-Ticket months ago. That’s a gap worth closing, especially with a system this early-stage and a customs process that already has more moving parts than most travelers realize.

Quick Facts — Bahamas Digital Arrival Card (BDAC) 2026

Detail	Info
Announced	May 5, 2026, by the Ministry of Tourism, Investments and Aviation
Status as of July 13, 2026	Pilot only — select visitors, select flights, participating ports
What it replaces	The paper immigration arrival card
What it combines	Immigration card + customs declaration, in one web-form submission
Cost	Free
Nationwide rollout date	Not announced
Who fills out the paper card instead	Almost everyone, for now
Separate system it doesn’t replace	The Exempt app, for the C17 baggage declaration

In one sentence: The Bahamas Digital Arrival Card is a free, government-run pilot that combines the immigration card and customs declaration into one web form, but as of mid-July 2026 it only covers select flights at participating ports, so most travelers are still filling out the paper card exactly as before.

What Is the Bahamas Digital Arrival Card?

The BDAC is a digital form that replaces the paper immigration card handed out on incoming flights, combined with the customs declaration into one online submission. Visitors selected for the pilot complete it through a dedicated web form before or during arrival instead of filling out paper at 30,000 feet or in the arrivals hall. It’s run jointly by the Ministry of Tourism, Investments and Aviation, Bahamas Immigration, and Bahamas Customs.

That’s the whole concept. Not complicated. What’s complicated is who actually gets to use it right now, and that’s the part most early coverage has glossed over.

Why “Pilot” Actually Means Pilot Here

A lot of arrival-card rollouts get announced and then expand fast — Vietnam’s went from one airport to nationwide inside a few months. The Bahamas hasn’t done that, at least not yet.

Deputy Prime Minister I. Chester Cooper called the BDAC “not simply a technological upgrade” but “a statement of commitment to innovation” — the kind of line officials say at every launch like this. What’s more useful is what the government hasn’t said: no list of eligible airlines, no named airports beyond “participating ports of entry,” no public application link for the general traveler to try. As of the most recent update on July 13, 2026, the pilot remains limited to select visitors on select flights. Everyone else still gets the paper card.

That’s not a knock on the rollout. Testing a new border-facing system on a small, controlled group before opening it up is the more careful approach — it’s the same pattern Australia used with its Travel Declaration, which spent nearly two years as a single-airline pilot before the government committed real funding to a national expansion. The Bahamas is roughly ten weeks into its own version of that process. No nationwide date has been set, and there’s no indication one is imminent.

The Part Nobody’s Untangling: The Exempt App Already Exists

Here’s where the Bahamas situation gets genuinely different from Vietnam or Australia’s, and where most of the early BDAC coverage stops short.

The Bahamas already runs a separate, established digital system for customs: the Exempt app, used to file the C17 baggage declaration. It predates the BDAC by years and isn’t going anywhere — visitors carrying dutiable goods beyond the standard $100 exemption still use it to declare items, upload receipts, and generate the QR code Customs scans on arrival. Returning residents use it too, for a higher exemption threshold.

So there are now, at least on paper, two different digital systems touching the same arrival process:

1. Exempt (existing) — the customs-specific app for the C17 baggage declaration, used by anyone with dutiable goods to declare, running independently of the BDAC pilot.
2. BDAC (new, pilot-only) — a combined immigration-and-customs web form that folds the C17 declaration into the same submission as the arrival card, currently available only to select pilot participants.

That overlap raises the obvious question the government hasn’t answered publicly yet: once the BDAC expands, does it replace Exempt entirely, or do the two coexist the way Vietnam’s arrival card and e-Visa do? Nothing in the May or July announcements addresses it. For now, if you’re not in the pilot, that question doesn’t apply to you: file customs the way you already would, through Exempt if you’re declaring dutiable items, and fill out the paper immigration card. If you are somehow in the pilot, your BDAC submission should be handling both.

How to Tell If Your Trip Is Actually Covered

Most Bahamas trips booked for the rest of 2026 won’t touch the BDAC at all. Here’s how to check without guessing:

1. Assume paper unless told otherwise. The default entry process — paper immigration card, Exempt app for customs if you’re declaring goods — is still standard for nearly every visitor.
2. Check with your airline directly, not a search result. The pilot is airline- and flight-specific, and airlines participating would be the ones telling passengers to use it, not a third-party site.
3. Don’t search for a BDAC application portal and enter passport data into whatever comes up first. The government hasn’t published a public-facing application link for general travelers. A site that looks official and asks for passport details or payment to “process” your Bahamas arrival card isn’t the pilot — it’s exactly the kind of scam this site has flagged repeatedly for Jamaica’s C5 and the Dominican Republic’s e-Ticket: a look-alike form charging for something that’s either free or, in this case, not even available to you yet.
4. If in doubt, plan for paper. It’s what you’d have done anyway before May 2026, and nothing about the pilot changes that baseline.

What Bahamas Entry Actually Requires Right Now

Setting the pilot aside, the underlying requirements for most American travelers haven’t changed. Passports need to be valid through departure with at least two blank pages for the entry stamp, and the U.S. State Department’s Bahamas travel page is worth a look before any trip, both for entry specifics and its current safety guidance. Currency over $10,000 needs declaring on the way in and out. Beyond that: the paper immigration card, and the Exempt app if you’re bringing in anything beyond the standard duty-free allowance.

None of that is new, and none of it is waiting on the BDAC to function.

Is This Worth Tracking Before Your Trip?

Probably, but not urgently. If a Bahamas trip is more than a few months out, it’s worth a quick check with the airline closer to departure — pilots like this one tend to expand in bursts, the way Vietnam’s did, rather than announce a nationwide date months in advance. If the trip is in the next few weeks, don’t build any plans around the BDAC. You’re filling out paper, the same as every Bahamas visitor before May 2026.

The Bottom Line

The Bahamas Digital Arrival Card launched as a pilot on May 5, 2026, combining the paper immigration card and customs declaration into one online form for select visitors on select flights. As of the July 13, 2026 update, it’s still limited that way — no nationwide date, no public eligibility list, no application portal for the average traveler to try. Most people are still filling out the same paper card that’s always been there, and anyone declaring dutiable goods is still using the separate Exempt app for the C17, a system the BDAC hasn’t absorbed yet and might not for a while.

Check with your airline to find out if you’re in the pilot. Otherwise, plan for paper, budget for the $100 duty-free exemption if you’re bringing anything back, and don’t pay anyone claiming to process a Bahamas arrival card for you — the real one, when it eventually opens up more broadly, will be free.

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BDAC pilot details sourced from the Ministry of Tourism, Investments and Aviation’s official announcement and the Bahamas Customs Department. Information current as of August 2026. Verify current pilot eligibility with your airline and entry requirements at travel.state.gov before booking.