Last Updated
If you want to get away now that the mania of the summer travel season is over then Jamaica is the ideal destination for a fall break.
Daytime temperatures in Jamaica reach a balmy but manageable 88F during September while the ocean temperature is around 84F which is perfect for swimming and water sports.
While September is one of the island’s wettest months these short heavy downpours are usually over quickly, leaving clear skies.
But from September 1 Jamaica is introducing a new digital entry form that all travelers must fill out.
This form can be completed before departure, while you’re on your flight to the island, or on the ground when you arrive.
For ease and speed travelers are being advised to complete the form before they depart their home country.
Here’s what you need to know:
Why Is The New Digital Entry Form Being Introduced?
The introduction of this new digital entry form is part of a wider trend that aims to digitize the entry process at airports across the Caribbean.
Some passengers may be concerned that having to complete a digital entry form will make the arrival process more complicated but actually the opposite should be true.
According to Jamaica’s Director of Tourism Donovan White, “arriving in Jamaica just got easier.”
Top 5 Travel Insurance Plans For 2023 Starting At $10 Per Week
Not only is the digital entry form being introduced to increase border security in Jamaica it is also intended to significantly speed up border inspections.
Instead of spending your precious vacation time standing in immigration lines, you can speed through immigration and customs controls when you arrive and spend more time on the beach instead.
What Information Will I Need To Share?
The new digital entry form is officially referred to as the Immigration/Customs C5 card.
To complete this form, you will need to share some of your personal information. This includes:
- Your first and last name
- Your birth date as it appears on your passport
- Your gender
- The number of family members you will be traveling with
- Your passport number and the country of issue
- Your full address
- Your flight name or flight number and the airport you are departing from
- The address you intend to stay at when you arrive in Jamaica
- Details of any countries you have traveled to in the past 6 weeks
- Your travel date and the length of your stay
- The purpose of your travel
- The number of pieces of luggage you will be traveling with.
For customs reasons, you will also need to share information about what you will be bringing with you when you travel. This is to ensure that items such as illicit drugs or narcotics, as well as fruits, plants, and meat or animal products.
If you are carrying currency or monetary instruments over USD$10,000 in value, this should also be declared on this form.
Because the form also serves as a customs declaration, you can detail any goods that you will need to declare and can then use this to declare all your goods to the customs officer on duty when you arrive.
You can find the Enter Jamaica website here.
Completing the form is not time-consuming, and it is intended to speed up the customs and immigration process when you arrive at the airport or port in Jamaica.
Is This System New?
This is not a new system, though it is new for Jamaica.
Many countries in Europe as well as Japan and the United Kingdom have introduced digital travel declarations and ask visitors to complete these before they arrive at immigration.
If it proves successful we may see this scheme being rolled out to other Caribbean nations too.
Traveler Alert: Don’t Forget Travel Insurance For Your Next Trip!
↓ Join Our Community ↓
The Travel Off Path Community FB group has all the latest reopening news, conversations, and Q&A’s happening daily!
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR LATEST POSTS
Enter your email address to subscribe to Travel Off Path’s latest breaking travel news, straight to your inbox.
This article originally appeared on TravelOffPath.com
Josiah
Thursday 10th of August 2023
As always good idea just bad implementation of a good idea. These digital forms will help foreigners coming to visit. But it hardly ever helps our local communities. My family lives in areas that only have P.O Boxes and those custom agents are not the friendly types. They don't want what's required and that's that. Once again our government just implemented new ideas for the rich and visitors but not for the local travelers. Still unfortunately I have come to expect nothing else from this governing body. Foreigner interest above all else.. SMH
Mavie Ebanks
Thursday 10th of August 2023
Do jamaican's returning home need to fill out this form
Clifford Henry
Thursday 10th of August 2023
Everytime I travel to or from Jamaica I fill out a form that asks all these questions, so I don't see what's new.
Natalie
Thursday 10th of August 2023
Just my country trying to copy western ways that shouldn't really apply to a small island sych as Jamaica.
George mckenna
Thursday 10th of August 2023
this form at the moment saves no time at all, I used it in June and still had to do paper copy on aircraft, still had to queue at automatic immigration kiosk to get immigration slip, then had to queue at the immigration desk, took over two hours to get from aircraft to arrivals hall