A five-year wait for Australia’s digital arrivals card?
That orange ‘incoming passenger card’ could still be with us for some time to come...
By David Flynn, October 29 2025
Australia might not make the long-awaited switch from pen-and-paper to a digital arrivals form until 2030.
This is despite the ongoing trial of the Australia Travel Declaration (ATD), which was launched one year ago as a pilot program on selected flights from New Zealand.
A spokesperson for the Australian Border Force had told News.com.au it is looking “for a full roll out... to all airports, all airlines and expanding into the cruise industry in the next five years”.
“As the pilot is still underway, no formal review has been conducted,” the spokesperson added.
Many Executive Traveller readers have experienced the ATD first-hand on Qantas flights from New Zealand into Brisbane and Sydney, and generally praise the system, including how the digital form is built into the Qantas app.
One shortcoming is that unlike the Singaporean equivalent, there’s no facility to create and save a user profile with the traveller’s passport details, and then enter just the details of each individual trip.
This makes for a lot of repetition, and increases the chance of mistakes, in completing an ATD for every trip.
Passengers on selected Qantas flights can now complete their Australian arrivals card right in the app.
Throughout the ATD trial, that familiar orange incoming passenger card remains available as a manual alternative.
The ABF has previously confirmed to Executive Traveller that the Australia Travel Declaration will eventually be its own government-operated “purpose-built website” – and, we can only presume, an app – for completing the digital pass.
However, it may also continue to exist in airline apps – if an airline chooses such integration – to provide travellers with a seamless in-app experience.
How the ATD works
Passengers can fill out the digital ATD directly from the Qantas app any time from three days before their flight, or even as late as on board their flight (assuming it has Wi-Fi).
After completing the declaration, passengers receive a digital pass with a QR code through both the Qantas app and their nominated email address.
That QR code is shown to border and biosecurity officers before leaving the airport.
Third time’s the charm...
Replacing the paper incoming passenger card with a digital version is long overdue, and something already in place at many countries.
Yet this is now the third time Australia has attempted to replace the paper-based incoming passenger card.
The Government’s ‘seamless traveller’ initiative of 2016, which was behind the rollout of passport smartgates using facial ID, also included plans – which never eventuated – for a digital arrivals card to be trialled in early 2018.
This is the third time the Australian Border Force has trialled a digital solution for inbound passengers.
Global IT giant Accenture then spent a whopping $60 million of taxpayer money across a staggering three years to develop the Digital Passenger Declaration platform, including a smartphone app which went live in February 2022 as post-pandemic travel kicked in.
But that digital form was so appallingly bad in just about every measure – as any traveller of the time can attest – that it was axed after only five months, in July 2022.
Perhaps those two failed attempts might explain the ABF’s caution in ‘beta-testing’ the Australia Travel Declaration with a staged rollout, but at the going rate this is more like a leisurely stroll-out.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
30 Oct 2018
Total posts 8
I've used this a dozen times or more through Brisbane all with no major issues. Only thing I have noted is that is says for 18 years or older only, but I've filled in for my kids and never had an issue going through. It also doesn't save any of your data unfortunately, so have to fill everything in manually which is a bit of a pain.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
18 Jul 2016
Total posts 12
they should copy Singapore's! great for storing base data.
12 Dec 2012
Total posts 1036
Japan's is also good.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
24 Apr 2014
Total posts 48
It's amazing how these solutions exist in other countries, but always seem to need to be redeveloped and take far far too long to deploy.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
01 Apr 2017
Total posts 37
The pollies can't have their mates (or their own) Consulting Firm, and then Software Development Company bill the taxpayers for tens of millions of wasteful dollars over many years if they simply purchased and deployed a "Solved Problem Turnkey Solution" We must be fair to the poor pollies and their consulting friends who are struggling to make ends meet and need this taxpayer welfare in the form of long term redundant make-work contracts to afford that fifth or six investment property AND the annual Euro holiday. /s... or not.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
13 Jun 2019
Total posts 18
Australia is backwards, and whoever drives how inbound customs and immigration procedures work, has clearly never travelled to other countries. Even the UK which is similarly backward has a more seamless integrated process having gotten rid of inbound cards and having pax only go through the E-gate without this Australian unique requirement of needing to line up at one machine to get a card, then go through the separate E-gate by using the said card and facial recognition, and then having to submit to a third process of being physically targeted and checked by Border Force who then either let you go or send you for further processing by Border Force and/or Quarantine. Madness. We have all seen episodes of Border Security. We all know who lies on their declaration about food, cash and illegal pharmaceuticals. Target those passengers and those flights. And while the government is at it, increase the penalties for people who lie on their declaration, so that it's not just a $400 slap on the wrist. $5000 fine. Immediate cancellation of student or tourist visa and expulsion for 5 years minimum. However, this would result in the university industry lobbying to waive penalties for foreign students who are repeat offenders.
29 Jan 2012
Total posts 221
Did anybody watch the 1997 movie Gattaca! This is just the start, and as others have already posted, many countries are way ahead of AU with their bio-metric advances. Some airports have the customer profiled as soon as they leave the taxi, with passport details, flight details, travel history, criminal history and alerts, all assessed before the passenger even reaches the check in - the chick-in is in it'self just a formality. Will be interesting what this all develops into over the coming decades. Now you can jump all over me - am not paranoid, just cautions!
27 Jan 2018
Total posts 6
i too have used it many times coming back into BNE from PNG. Not sure what the fuss is as it saves no time at all. Fill it out online, get in the same queue as all others with their paper based cards and then scan the QR and face the same questions. Zero in the way of time saving.
I was expecting to be directed to a separate queue with a QR code scanner and processed directly from there. So with the expanding rollout I'm still at a loss as to why it exists and where the time saving might be.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
05 Oct 2016
Total posts 163
Not sure there was any intention of time saving at customs but rather about the practicality of pen and paper which died out for most people about 15 years ago....
12 May 2020
Total posts 8
Well, why would they be in any hurry to roll this out? They're a Government department - accountable to no one and there's no incentive for them whatsoever to create work for themselves. Better to have a prolonged, limited trial and let the next guy deal with it in the future.
Meanwhile, we have this, as well as the world's most expensive passports. Sums up the Australian government provided services and efficiency in a nutshell.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
05 Oct 2016
Total posts 163
I remain convinced that the Australian government is technologically illiterate. Or worse, criminally wasting taxpayers money on stupid senseless decisions.
Etihad - Etihad Guest
21 Jul 2019
Total posts 229
Flew into PNG from Cairns last fortnight and they've managed to get their own digital arrival card system up and running without any major hitches on their very first go! Simple interface, uncomplicated, easy to lodge online or via app, open 72 hours before arrival. It was a pleasure to use, and the actual arrival process into Jackson's Airport was the smoothest I've had. Now why can't our own gov't it right after years of trying??
24 Apr 2017
Total posts 83
Ours probably needs links to the CIA and the FBI and the NSA so America's spy agencies know all about every entry into Australia.
24 Apr 2017
Total posts 83
no doubt the government has outsourced it to the likes of Accenture or EY, so it'll end up costing 10 times the estimate, and 5 times longer than it should, and it won't work properly when its implemented
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
09 Mar 2017
Total posts 23
Other countries have designed a safe and user friendly version. Typically, we reinvent the wheel when it’s simply not necessary to do so. Pick one of the other proven digital systems and tweak it as needed. It’s mental that it’s ok for our government agencies to remain so inefficient and outdated. We continually condone this pathetic slowness
13 Aug 2024
Total posts 3
Yet Indonesia (aka Bali) succesfully implented this months ago. Maybe the BOM software people are in charge.
13 Aug 2024
Total posts 3
And Bali (Indonesia) implemented this months ago. How awkward for Australia.
12 Sep 2024
Total posts 16
Sheer arrogance, I would say. Digital arrival cards aren't that difficult. Goes to show how our current government is so inefficient. Opens itself up to a lot of conspiracy theories as to "who" has the contract to do this at whatever price to our taxpayers.
21 Jul 2014
Total posts 21
One word needed “Hopeless”
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
17 Sep 2012
Total posts 6
Just back from Singapore where the arrivals card and immigration process is efficient and works. Why can’t Australia buy that system, rather than reinvent the wheel? I travel extensively and cringe at the “digital” paper ticket entry process when coming home to Sydney. Same with airport transport. Same with defence. Departmental secretaries should be held accountable for the waste. State and Federal governments never seem to learn. What can we do to change their attitudes.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
30 Oct 2018
Total posts 8
Works for all International flights arriving in BNE, not just ones from Auckland. It says 18+ only as well but works fine for my kids.
Interesting the long rollout, about a month back PNG announced it had a new system and it went live a week later. Didn't even trial it.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
13 Nov 2018
Total posts 144
I have used this for many flights into BNE on Qantas many times now. And it seems to be okay. It’s just annoying that I need to re-enter my details every time AND that “copy and paste functions” don’t seem to work; so it’s harder than it should be to use.
But what never ceases to amaze me is that Australian government bodies of all levels seem to think that they have to reinvent the wheel every time they need a payment system or data app of some kind for government services. There are plenty of very good examples of incoming passenger information apps around the world. Are we so up ourselves that we think that every other system is second rate, and that only “we” can come up with the best? (Victoria’s Myki is the perfect example of this arrogance). Where’s the value for taxpayers in rewriting the gospel from scratch? Or are our governments and bureaucrats just protecting a bloated “public service”?
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