Planning to fly out for Hajj or Umrah this month? Make sure your vaccination paperwork is in order first — because from today, September 14, no passenger will be allowed to board an international flight from Pakistan without a NADRA-integrated vaccination certificate.
Border Health Services-Pakistan (BHS-P), which operates under the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination, issued the directive in a notice dated September 7 addressed to all chief operating officers at Pakistan’s airports. According to Dawn, the notice states plainly that “from September 14, no passenger would be allowed to travel without ‘Nadra-integrated’ proof of vaccination.” The Express Tribune reported that the notification was issued under National Health Services Minister Mustafa Kamal, with the formal order signed by Airport Health Officer Dr Sara Saeed.
In simple terms: the old paper vaccination cards that pilgrims and other international travellers used to carry are no longer good enough on their own. Only a digital certificate linked to a traveller’s NADRA record will be accepted at the airport from now on.
What Exactly Do Pilgrims Need?
The directive requires a NADRA-linked digital vaccine card covering four vaccinations, obtainable only from an authorised centre before departure.
| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Vaccines required | Polio, Meningitis, Yellow Fever, Influenza |
| Certificate type | Digital, NADRA-integrated (paper-only cards not accepted) |
| Authorised centre | Federal Government Civil Dispensary (for international Hajj/Umrah travellers) |
| Airport arrival window | At least 6 hours before flight, if vaccination/registration is still needed |
| Fee payment | Processed through NADRA’s e-Sahulat platform |
| Effective date | September 14, 2026 |
Airlines have been directed to pass the message on to their travel agents so passengers aren’t caught off guard at the last minute. As one BHS-P notice quoted by the Tribune put it, “in order to minimise chaos and discomfort among Umrah pilgrims, it has been requested that all airlines must convey to their travel agents that from now onwards only NADRA-integrated vaccination proofs will be acceptable for travel.” Airport-based vaccination and online registration counters at the international departures area are expected to be up and running within days for travellers who haven’t already got their certificate.
Why the Change Now
The move builds on Pakistan’s broader push to tighten health screening at its border points. It follows an earlier decision this year to step up health surveillance at entry and exit points as part of efforts to prevent cross-border disease transmission, including the Nipah virus alert flagged in January. Linking vaccination records to NADRA is meant to close the loophole of forged or informally issued paper cards, giving airport health officials a single, verifiable digital record to check before anyone boards.
Saudi Arabia has for some time required proof of certain vaccinations, including against meningitis and polio, from pilgrims arriving for Hajj and Umrah — so Pakistani authorities are also aligning domestic checks with requirements already in place at the destination end. Neither BHS-P’s notice nor the news reports citing it specify a penalty for travellers who show up without the certificate, but officials have made clear that boarding itself will be denied without it.
Our Opinion
Digitising vaccination proof through NADRA is a sensible move on paper — it closes an obvious gap where forged or hastily-issued paper cards could slip through, and it gives Pakistan a cleaner record to point to if questioned by Saudi authorities at the other end. But the timeline here is the real test: announcing a hard cutoff just one week ahead, with airport vaccination counters still being set up “within days” of the deadline itself, is the kind of rollout that tends to strand ordinary travellers rather than catch bad actors. If BHS-P wants this system to actually work rather than just cause chaos at departure lounges, it needs to get those counters fully operational immediately and communicate the requirement far more loudly than a notice addressed to airline COOs — because right now, the passengers who need to know are the ones least likely to have heard.
