Bangladesh restores Israel travel ban text on all new passports

Headline

Bangladesh reprints "except Israel" clause on passports as of April 7

Bangladesh's Home Ministry restored the inscription "THIS PASSPORT IS VALID FOR ALL COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD EXCEPT ISRAEL" on newly issued passports under a directive dated April 7, 2025, reversing a 2021 change that had quietly dropped the wording.

What changed on the passport page

From 2021 until this year, Bangladeshi e-passports carried standard international wording with no country carve-out. Officials said at the time the removal was a formatting alignment, not a policy shift and the underlying ban on travel to Israel stayed on the books throughout.

The April directive from the Security Services Division puts the exclusion back in print on the passport information page. Deputy Secretary Nilima Afroze confirmed the order to state news agency BSS. The Department of Immigration and Passports told Arab News it was working through the technical rollout, noting that because e-passport booklets are printed abroad, adjusting the print run takes about a week.

So the legal ban isn't new. What's new is the visibility: every fresh passport now carries the exclusion on its face, which makes the restriction impossible to overlook at an Israeli border desk or a third-country transit point.

Who gets caught and what they have to do

The restriction binds anyone traveling on a Bangladeshi passport, including citizens abroad, dual nationals using the Bangladeshi document and remote workers who rely on it as their primary travel paper. Foreign tourists entering Bangladesh aren't affected and foreign residents traveling on non-Bangladeshi passports aren't restricted in their own movements.

Former foreign minister A.K. Abdul Momen previously warned that "no one from Bangladesh can visit Israel and if anyone does, legal action will be taken against that person." That threat now sits printed inside the document itself.

Practical implications for anyone renewing or applying:

• Renewals and new applications: standard fees and process, no extra step, the clause is added automatically to the printed booklet.
• Dual nationals: traveling to Israel on a second passport remains physically possible where Israeli border control accepts it, but doing so may still violate Bangladeshi law on return.
• No exemption route: nothing in the directive creates a waiver, permit or special-case pathway for business, journalism or family travel.

Nomads holding a Bangladeshi passport as their working travel document should plan itineraries accordingly and, if a second nationality is available, weigh which document to present at which border. Broader entry, residency and work rules for foreigners inside the country are covered in the Bangladesh country guide.