Prohibited and restricted items for Bangladesh

This page is shorter than you might expect, and deliberately so. Read the last section before you rely on it.

The short answer

There are two distinct categories, and travellers routinely merge them:

• Prohibited: may not enter at all. No duty will make it lawful.
• Restricted: may enter, but only with the right permit, licence, or certificate obtained before you travel.

Duty is a third, separate question. Something can be perfectly permitted and still dutiable — gold bars are the obvious example.

Why “I will just pay the duty” does not work

Duty applies to goods you are allowed to bring. For a prohibited item there is no rate to pay, because permission is not for sale. Offering to pay at the desk does not convert a prohibited item into a permitted one, and it changes the character of the conversation.

For a restricted item, the permit must generally exist before arrival. Applying retrospectively at the airport is not the process.

Categories that commonly catch travellers

Without publishing specific figures or a full enumeration, these are the areas where diaspora travellers most often discover a restriction they did not know about:

• Medicines, particularly larger quantities and controlled substances. Carry a prescription and keep medication in labelled original packaging.
• Drones and radio equipment, which frequently need clearance.
• Agricultural items — seeds, plants, some foods.
• Anything in commercial quantity. The baggage rules are for personal effects. Quantity alone can move an item out of that category, even when a single unit would be unremarkable.

That last one is the most common surprise: fifteen identical phone cases as gifts is not obviously personal effects.

Where the real list lives

The authoritative list is the Import Policy Order issued by the Ministry of Commerce, together with the baggage rules. It is long, it is amended, and it is the document that actually governs.

Related

• What you must declare
• Green versus red channel
• Gifts you are carrying

What we could not verify

Almost everything specific. We have not transcribed the current Import Policy Order, so this page publishes no enumerated list and no thresholds.

That is a deliberate choice. A partial prohibited-items list is worse than none: a reader who checks it, does not find their item, and concludes it is fine has been actively misled. Check the current Import Policy Order, or ask your mission, for anything you are unsure about.