BMET card holders — what extra allowance do you get?

The BMET card is often described as unlocking broad customs privileges. In the allowances this site covers, its effect is narrower and more specific than that reputation suggests.

The short answer

• New phones: two per calendar year instead of one. This is the concrete, documented difference.
• Gold, cash and baggage allowances are unchanged. The card does not raise the 117 g gold-bar ceiling, the USD 10,000 cash threshold, or the 65 kg baggage allowance.

What the card is

The BMET card is issued by the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training and identifies you as a Bangladeshi worker abroad. It exists mainly for employment, migration and welfare purposes; the customs allowance is a secondary benefit attached to it.

Equivalent expat identification is treated the same way for the phone allowance.

Using it at the desk

Two practical points:

• Carry the card, not a photo of it. The allowance depends on identification you can actually produce at arrival.
• The doubled allowance is still per calendar year, not per trip. Two new phones in March means none in October of the same year.

The calculator has a BMET checkbox. Tick it and the new-phone allowance changes from one to two; nothing else moves, which is the point.

What it does not do

It is worth being explicit, because this is where expectations run ahead of the rules:

• It does not make gold bars duty-free. Bars are dutiable per tola for everyone.
• It does not raise the jewellery allowance above 100 g.
• It does not exempt you from declaring cash above the threshold.
• It does not change which channel you use — the same declaration rules apply.

Related

• New phone duty
• Gold allowance
• What you must declare

What we could not verify

Whether the current rules attach any allowance beyond the new-phone doubling to BMET or equivalent expat cards. We have confirmed the phone allowance only, and this page claims nothing further. If you have been told the card carries a wider benefit, confirm it against the SRO before you rely on it.