(Valid 2017) You CAN NOT get tourist visa for Papua New Guinea on any border or at the airport. You must issue one at the closest embassy or consulate. If you decide to cross the border between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea on land it is most convenient to issue your visa at the embassy in Jakarta or the consulate in Jayapura, West Papua

UPDATE 2018: You can now issue visa on arrival at Port Moresby. Here is a list of eligible countries: click here to see the list. More information you can get here.

Address of the consulate of Papua New Guinea in Jayapura:

Jl. Raya Argapura No.39-A, Argapura, Jayapura Utara, Kota Jayapura, Papua, Indonesia

Working time: from Monday to Friday

Phone number: +62 967 521120

It is really easy to issue this visa. Employees are nice and polite and it is done in five days, but often you can get it even earlier. There are no queues and the procedure doesn’t take much time.

Documents needed:

– Two photos in exactly this size 4×6 cm

– Filled-in form – you can get it at the consulate and have to fill it with a blue pen

– A cover letter,explaining why you want to visit Papua New Guinea, what will be your route and how long you plan to stay. The letter should be printed, not handwritten.

– Bank account with sufficient funds

– Photocopy of the first page of your passport

– Return flight ticket (we told the immigration office we will go out the same border we enter so we didn’t need a flight ticket reservation)

The tourist visa is in form of a sticker that is put on the whole page. The visa is 60 days single entry and you can cross the border within one month of issuing it. The visa is free of charge.

Next to the embassy, 200-300 meters away on the same street, is the only currency exchange you can find in order to exchange Indonesian Rupee for other currency or PNG Kinas. The exchange rate is OK.

From there to the border is 50-60 km (around 2 hours) and the road is in relatively good condition. On the Indonesian side there is a small weekly market. The border control employees check diligently all the visas and stamps and it can take up to 20-30 minutes to cross the border.

Attention! We have been told that if you have visa on arrival for Indonesia you can’t cross the border (this is unconfirmed information though). This land border can be crossed only by people who have visas issued by the Indonesian embassy. The employees on the other border are not so thorough as their colleagues in Indonesia and check only if you bring forbidden animal products.

When you cross the border there is nothing on the other side in PNG. The first village called Wutung is 2-3 km away. At the border you can hop on a PMV (payed transportation) to Vanimo, which is 1 hour away and the journey costs 10-20 Kinas (2,50-5 Euro). There are almost no vehicles traveling on the road except if it is market day but hitchhiking is still possible, the situation with hitchhiking is similar to those from Jayapura to the border.

Working hours of the border: from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day

To summarize: crossing this border is easy and safe