Amidst the intensifying COVID-19 global pandemic and the outbreak in the Maldives, Public Health Emergency was declared on 12^th March 2020. Hence, as a precautionary measure and to facilitate the undocumented expatriates to return their home, Maldives Immigration has decided to return the passports held at immigration to their holders.

The aforementioned passports were received from the employers of expatriates for multiple reasons, including the absconding of the expatriate workers. A list of these passports has been published at immigration’s website (www.immigration.gov.mv) on 22^nd March 2020. As such, expatriate workers whose passports are held at immigration and wish to return to the home country, are advised to collect the passport from Expatriate Monitoring and Repatriation Section (Bidheysee Hiya) of Maldives Immigration between 10am to 12noon, starting from 23^rd March 2020, to collect the passport.

In addition, it is highly recommended to check the availability of the passport, before the passport holder attends to immigration for passport collection. This can be verified from the uploaded list or by sending passport details via a Viber message to the hotline, 7980408.