ICA to Bar Travelers Who Pose Threat From Taking Ships, Flights to Singapore

No-boarding directives at air checkpoints from 2026, and sea checkpoints from 2028

- Andrew Wong and Claudia Tan

High-risk or undesirable travelers who pose a health, security, or immigration threat to Singapore will soon be denied the chance to board air or sea transport to travel here.

The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) will be able to issue no-boarding directives (NBDs) to transport operators to prevent such travelers from boarding ships and flights bound for Singapore.

ICA plans to roll out the NBDs to prevent arrivals at air checkpoints from 2026 and at sea checkpoints from 2028.

Transport operators that fail to comply with an NBD can be fined up to $10,000.

The move comes in the wake of the Immigration (Amendment) Act, which came into force on Dec 31, 2024.

An initial plan, first reported in 2023, to weed out such passengers traveling into Singapore through land checkpoints faced roadblocks, as the proposal would have required bus operators to collect and submit passenger information in advance.

Bus operators with routes across the Causeway had told The Straits Times in 2023 that the plan to submit passenger information in advance to ICA could be difficult to implement and might affect business.

On July 31, 2025, ICA said that while collecting passenger and crew information in advance has been the norm for airline and ship operators, such information is generally not readily available at land checkpoints.

Meanwhile, enhancements to Singapore's border security, including through new profiling and detection capabilities, have allowed ICA to identify more high-risk travelers before their arrival here.