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The Malaysia Digital Arrival Card, usually shortened to MDAC, is a free online form that almost every foreign visitor now has to submit before arriving in Malaysia. It replaced the old paper arrival card, it takes about five minutes, and it is genuinely simple once you know two things: which website is the real one, and when you are actually allowed to submit it.
Those two points are where nearly all the confusion sits, and the second one catches out long-haul travellers in particular. This guide walks through the form field by field, explains the timing rule with examples, and covers what to do when something goes wrong.
Current at the time of writing in 2026. Entry rules change, so confirm the details for your own passport on the official Immigration Department website before you travel.
The short version
- It is free. The official MDAC costs nothing. Any site charging a fee is not the government.
- One official portal only: the Immigration Department site at imigresen-online.imi.gov.my/mdac/main. Type it in rather than clicking a search advert.
- Submit within three days of arrival. The window is 72 hours before your arrival, and the portal will refuse an earlier submission.
- Everyone needs their own, including babies and children.
- One arrival, one card. Leave and come back, including a day trip to Singapore, and you submit a new one.
- Some travellers are exempt, including Singapore citizens and certain long-term pass holders.
The 72-hour window, and why long-haul travellers get caught out
This is the part worth reading twice, because it is genuinely counterintuitive and it is the most common reason people arrive at an airport without a valid MDAC.
The window opens 72 hours before your arrival in Malaysia, not before your departure. Submit earlier than that and the portal simply will not accept the form. So you cannot tick this off weeks in advance the way you might with a visa.
For a short-haul flight that is straightforward. For a long journey it needs a moment of thought:
- Flying from Europe or North America. Your total journey with connections may run twenty hours or more, but it still falls inside a 72-hour window. File it the day before you fly and you will be comfortably inside.
- Arriving on an overnight flight. Check the arrival date in local Malaysian time rather than your departure date. Crossing the date line or simply flying overnight can put your arrival on a different calendar day from the one you expect.
- Long stopovers. If you are breaking your journey somewhere for two or three nights, the window may not have opened when you first set off. File it during the stopover instead.
The safest habit: submit it the day before your final flight into Malaysia, once you know the arrival date is fixed. That is inside the window for almost every itinerary, and early enough that you are not doing paperwork at a departure gate.
One practical warning: airline staff at check-in increasingly ask to see it. Technically you can complete the form on your phone right up until you reach the immigration counter, but if your airline blocks you at check-in that is no help at all. Treat it as something to do before you leave for the airport.
Avoiding the fake MDAC sites
There is a small industry of websites that will fill in the MDAC on your behalf for a fee, and a smaller number that are outright scams. The form is free and takes five minutes, so there is nothing to buy here.
What makes this genuinely risky is that search results for the MDAC are crowded with paid adverts and with sites designed to look official. Some carry names and layouts close enough to the real thing that a hurried traveller would not notice.
How to be certain you are on the real portal:
- Type the address in by hand rather than clicking a search result: imigresen-online.imi.gov.my/mdac/main.
- Look for the government domain. The real portal sits on a gov.my address. Anything ending in .com, .net or .info is not the Immigration Department, however official the branding looks.
- If you are asked to pay, close the tab. That is the single clearest signal. The official MDAC has no fee of any kind.
- Skip the sponsored results. Adverts sit above the genuine link in most searches, and they are where the paid intermediaries live.
Using a paid intermediary is not illegal and you will probably still get a valid card. You will simply have paid somewhere between a few pounds and a few dozen for a form you could have completed yourself in the time it takes to make a coffee, and handed your passport details to a company you know nothing about.
What to have ready before you start
Gather these first and the form takes a few minutes rather than several frustrating attempts.
- Your passport. You will need the number and the exact spelling of your name as printed.
- Your flight details. Airline, flight number, and arrival date. Have the booking open in another tab.
- Your point of entry. Which airport or land crossing. If you are flying into Kuala Lumpur, check whether your flight lands at KLIA Terminal 1 or KLIA2, because they are separate buildings.
- Your first night’s address. Hotel name and full street address, not just the city.
- A working email address. Your confirmation goes here.
Filling in the form, field by field
The portal is mobile-friendly, so a phone is fine. The layout changes from time to time, but the information asked for is consistent.
Your name, exactly as printed
Enter your name precisely as it appears in the machine-readable section of your passport. No nicknames, no shortened forms, no dropping a middle name because the box looks small. If your passport says Jonathan and everyone calls you Jon, the form says Jonathan.
This matters more than people assume, because a mismatch between your card and your passport is exactly the sort of thing that turns a ten-second immigration check into a conversation.
Passport number
Copy it character by character from the passport itself rather than from memory or an old booking. This is the single field most worth double-checking, because it is also the hardest to correct later.
Arrival date and flight details
Use the arrival date in Malaysian local time, which for an overnight flight is often the day after you leave home. Enter the flight number of the final leg into Malaysia, not your first flight of the journey.
Point of entry
Select the airport or crossing where you will clear Malaysian immigration. If you are transiting through Kuala Lumpur to somewhere else in Malaysia, the point of entry is where you go through immigration, which is usually KLIA. Our guide to getting from KLIA into the city covers what happens once you are through.
Accommodation address
This is the field that generates the most questions, and the answer is more relaxed than people fear. Give the address of where you will spend your first night. A hotel name plus its street address is fine.
A few common situations:
- Multiple hotels across the trip. Enter the first one. The form is not a full itinerary and nobody expects you to declare every move.
- Staying with friends or family. Use their address.
- Nothing booked yet. You need something plausible, so book a refundable first night before you fill the form in. Inventing an address is a poor idea, and an unbooked arrival is an awkward conversation at immigration anyway.
- Arriving overland from Singapore or Thailand. Same rule: where you sleep that night.
Contact details
Use an email address you can actually open while travelling, since your confirmation and QR code arrive there. A phone number in international format is normally requested too, and your home mobile number is fine.
After you submit: the QR code
Submission is instant. The portal generates a confirmation with a QR code, and the same thing arrives by email, usually as a PDF.
Save it in more than one place. Screenshot it to your camera roll, keep the email, and if you like belt and braces, print it. A screenshot is the most useful version, because it works with no signal and no battery-draining email app.
You do not need to print it. A digital copy on your phone is accepted.
Worth stressing the offline point: you may land with no data, in a queue, with your phone on ten per cent. A screenshot in your photos survives all of that. Relying on opening an email in an airport with patchy free wifi is how people end up stepping out of the queue.
If you want data from the moment you land rather than hunting for wifi, an eSIM for Malaysia installed before you fly is the easiest fix, and it means Grab and maps work at the kerb. Our eSIM guide covers the options.
Fixing a mistake
Good news: you are not stuck. The portal has a registration check function, and you can look up an existing submission using your passport number, nationality and the PIN or reference from your confirmation. From there you can correct many details before you travel.
The caveat is that not every field is editable, and a wrong passport number is the one that usually cannot be patched. In that case the practical answer is to submit again with the correct details, well before you fly.
If your confirmation email never arrives, check the spam folder first, then use the registration check to confirm the submission actually went through. The portal has been known to be slow or briefly unavailable during peak travel periods, so if it will not load, try again later rather than assuming your submission failed.
Who does not need one
Exemptions exist, and the list has been adjusted before, so confirm your own position officially. Broadly, the MDAC is not required for:
- Malaysian citizens and permanent residents
- Singapore citizens
- Diplomatic and official passport holders
- Certain long-term pass holders already resident in Malaysia
- Holders of some frequent-crossing border passes
- Genuine transit passengers who do not clear immigration and stay airside
That last one is worth reading carefully. If you are changing planes at KLIA without leaving the international transit area, you do not need a card. If you clear immigration for any reason, including a long layover where you want to leave the airport, you do.
One card per arrival, including that Singapore day trip
The MDAC is tied to a single arrival. Every time you enter Malaysia you need a fresh one, submitted inside the 72-hour window before that entry.
For most visitors that means one card and no more thought. But it catches out a specific and common trip pattern: people basing themselves in Kuala Lumpur and taking a side trip to Singapore, or crossing overland into Thailand and back. Each return to Malaysia is a new arrival and needs a new card.
It is free and takes five minutes, so this is an inconvenience rather than a problem. It is simply the kind of thing nobody tells you, and discovering it at a land border on a Sunday afternoon is worse than knowing in advance.
What the MDAC is not
Three clarifications, because these come up constantly and conflating them causes real problems.
- It is not a visa. Submitting the MDAC says nothing about whether you are allowed to enter. Most nationalities can enter Malaysia visa-free for short stays, but some need a visa arranged in advance, and the arrival card does not replace it. Our Malaysia visa requirements guide covers which group you are in.
- It is not travel insurance or proof of funds. The card is a declaration of your details, nothing more. Immigration officers can still ask to see a return ticket, accommodation, or evidence you can support yourself.
- It is not a guarantee of entry. The decision is made at the counter. A valid MDAC makes that check faster; it does not make it automatic.
While you are working through pre-trip admin, it is a sensible moment to sort travel insurance if you have not already. It is not an entry requirement for tourists, but medical care as a foreigner is not free, and it is the one piece of paperwork people regret skipping.
A note on the automated gates
Malaysia has been expanding automated immigration gates at its main airports, and eligible travellers with a biometric passport can sometimes use them instead of queueing for a manual counter. Eligibility depends on nationality and on having your biometrics registered, and the list of qualifying countries has been extended more than once.
Two things worth knowing rather than relying on: a valid MDAC is part of the requirement, and first-time visitors usually still need to see an officer so their biometrics can be captured. Check the current position officially rather than planning around it, and treat the automated gate as a pleasant surprise rather than the plan.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Malaysia Digital Arrival Card free?
Yes. The official MDAC is completely free and is submitted through the Immigration Department portal at imigresen-online.imi.gov.my/mdac/main. Any website charging a fee is a third-party intermediary or a scam, not the government. The form takes about five minutes to complete yourself.
How far in advance can I submit the MDAC?
Within three days, or 72 hours, of your arrival in Malaysia. The portal will reject submissions made earlier than that. The window counts from your arrival date rather than your departure, so for long-haul journeys the safest approach is to file it the day before your final flight into Malaysia.
Do children need their own MDAC?
Yes. Every foreign traveller needs an individual submission, including babies and children, each using their own passport details. A parent or guardian submits it on their behalf. There is no family or group option.
What happens if I forget to fill in the MDAC?
You can complete it on your phone at any point before reaching the immigration counter, and the portal is mobile-friendly. The practical risk is earlier than that: airline staff increasingly check for it at check-in, so a missing card can stop you boarding. Fill it in before you leave for the airport.
Can I edit my MDAC after submitting it?
Some fields, yes. The portal has a registration check function where you can retrieve your submission using your passport number, nationality and reference, then amend certain details. A wrong passport number generally cannot be corrected, in which case submit a fresh application with the right details before you fly.
Do I need a new MDAC if I leave Malaysia and come back?
Yes. The card covers a single arrival, so a side trip to Singapore or an overland hop into Thailand means submitting a new one before you re-enter, again inside the 72-hour window. It is free each time.
Do I need to print the MDAC?
No. A digital copy is accepted. The most reliable option is a screenshot saved to your phone’s photos, which works without signal or a working email app. Keep the confirmation email as a backup.
Where to verify everything
Entry rules change, and this page is a guide rather than an authority. Check these before you travel:
- The official MDAC portal, for the form itself
- The Immigration Department of Malaysia, for entry requirements and exemptions
- Your own government’s travel advice for Malaysia
Where those disagree with anything here, they win.
