Travelling to the Maldives with children: entry rules

Before you fly, make sure every child in your group has:

• Their own passport, machine-readable, valid for at least one month after arrival (many airlines want six months, so check with yours).
• Their own IMUGA traveller declaration, completed online within 96 hours before arrival.
• A place on your confirmed return or onward booking, and a place on your confirmed accommodation booking.
• A yellow fever certificate, but only if you are arriving from, or have transited through, a country with yellow fever risk, and only for children aged one or over.
• A parental consent letter, if the child is travelling without one or both parents (see below).

Everything else follows the adult rules in our Maldives visa and entry requirements guide.

Maldives Immigration is clear on this point: children and minors must hold their own passport. A child listed on a parent’s passport will not be accepted.

The passport must have a machine-readable zone, the coded lines at the foot of the photo page, and at least one month’s validity. Immigration also states that passports with “extended validity” are not accepted, so an older passport stretched with a handwritten or stamped extension will not do.

Babies need passports too. If your child was born recently, allow time for the application in your home country. Check that the photo still looks like the child; young children change fast, and a very old photo can slow things down at the desk.

Every foreign traveller, including children and babies, must submit an individual Traveller Declaration on Maldives Immigration’s IMUGA portal (imuga.immigration.gov.mv). It is free and can be done within 96 hours before arrival.

A parent can fill in the forms for the whole family, but each child needs a separate declaration with their own passport details. Keep each confirmation handy on your phone or on paper. Immigration asks travellers to present the completed declaration on arrival.

A declaration on departure is no longer needed: it was dropped for departing travellers from 15 August 2024 (as reported).

There is no separate child visa for holidays. Children of most nationalities receive the same free 30-day tourist visa on arrival as their parents. Maldives Immigration lists the conditions:

• a valid passport as above;
• a complete itinerary with confirmed return tickets;
• a prepaid, confirmed booking at a registered tourist facility, plus enough funds for the stay.

Entry remains at the immigration officer’s discretion, for adults and children alike. Two exceptions apply to all ages: entry is not granted on Israeli passports (since 15 April 2025), and the yellow fever rule below.

This is the part most families worry about, so here is exactly what the official sources say.

• Maldives Immigration’s tourist visa page does not mention consent letters for foreign children.
• Maldives missions abroad (in their consular FAQs) say that a child under 18 must travel with a guardian, or carry a consent letter from a parent authorising the guardianship for the trip, to show at the immigration counter on arrival.

In practice, the consent letter matters most when a child arrives with grandparents, an aunt or uncle, a family friend or a school group. If you are in that situation, carry a signed letter from the parents that names the child, the accompanying adult, the travel dates and how to reach the parents.

When a child travels with only one parent, no official Maldivian rule we could find requires extra paperwork. Even so, as general advice (not a published requirement), carry:

• a signed consent letter from the parent who is not travelling, with a copy of their passport;
• the child’s birth certificate, or another document showing your relationship, especially if you and the child have different surnames.

Airlines and your own country’s border officials may also ask for these when you leave home, so they are worth having either way. If your situation is unusual, such as custody orders, write to Maldives Immigration or the nearest Maldivian embassy or high commission before you book.

Children travelling alone

Airlines set their own rules for unaccompanied minors, including ages, fees and escort services. Ask your airline early. On arrival, the guardian-or-consent-letter guidance above applies, and the child still needs a confirmed booking and a confirmed onward or return ticket.

The Maldives does not have yellow fever. A valid yellow fever vaccination certificate is required only if a traveller is arriving from, or has recently transited through, a country with yellow fever transmission risk. Children under one year old are exempt, according to Maldives Immigration; the Ministry of Health’s 2019 guideline sets the cut-off at nine months, so check with your airline if your baby is 9 to 12 months old.

No other vaccines are required for entry. For the routine and recommended vaccines worth discussing with your doctor, see our guide to vaccinations and health entry requirements. If your child takes regular medicine, bring the prescription and read bringing medicines into the Maldives. It is also worth checking that your travel insurance covers every child by name.

Two official charges have an exemption for the very young:

• Green tax (Maldives Inland Revenue Authority, MIRA): children under two are exempt. For everyone else it is USD 6 per guest per night at guesthouses and hotels with 50 rooms or fewer on inhabited islands, and USD 12 at resorts, larger guesthouses and hotels, and liveaboards.

Departure taxes and fees are built into air fares, so your airline will tell you what an infant ticket includes. For the wider picture of GST, service charge and costs, see Maldives money, costs and taxes.

The customs rules are the same for every age. Alcohol, pork and pork products, narcotics, pornography and idols for worship are prohibited, and vapes are banned. Toys are not a problem, but check older children’s bags for vapes or e-cigarettes, which some teenagers carry without thinking.

If you bring baby food or formula, check the labels: anything containing pork is prohibited. Read the full list in our customs allowances guide.

Arrival is at Velana International Airport on Hulhulé, next to Malé. Have the passports, IMUGA confirmations, return tickets and accommodation booking together in one folder before you reach the desk. Present each child at the counter with you; officers may want to see the child’s face against the passport photo.

After immigration and customs you collect your bags and meet your transfer. Our Velana airport arrival guide covers the layout, the airport ferry and buses.

Most families travelling independently go on by speedboat or public ferry. Life jackets are mandatory on boats of nine metres or less, and it is sensible to ask for child-sized jackets before you board. Our boat safety guide explains what to expect.

Take Dhiffushi as an example. It sits about 37 km north-east of Malé, and the shared speedboat takes around 40 to 50 minutes from Malé or the airport. The public ferry does not run on Fridays, which matters when you are juggling naps and luggage. See how to get to Dhiffushi and, once you are there, our Dhiffushi with kids guide. For the country as a whole, read the Maldives with kids family guide and the wider Maldives travel guide.