Singapore’s QR code immigration clearance for car travellers to start March 19

Once the feature is rolled out, they will not need to present their physical passports to Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers at car counters, ICA said on Tuesday.

Instead, travellers would only need to scan a single QR code – which they must generate via the MyICA mobile app before arriving at a checkpoint. This QR code is shared by all travellers in the car.

While travellers will be able to perform “self-clearance” in the comfort of their cars with minimal intervention by officers once the system is fully implemented, the in-car clearance process that begins this month is not yet fully automated as officers will still be stationed at the manual counters, ICA had said at its annual workplan seminar last May.

Travellers can thus still choose to present their physical passports to ICA officers at the counters instead of using QR codes.

The QR code initiative only applies to Singapore’s checkpoints at the moment. Travellers will still need their physical passports at Malaysia’s checkpoints.

To generate a unique QR code, travellers must download the MyICA mobile app.

Singapore residents – including Singapore citizens, permanent residents and long-term pass holders – can auto-populate their passport details via Singpass when they access the MyICA app.

Alternatively, these travellers can use the built-in camera function in the app to scan the machine-readable zone of their passport biodata pages. This refers to the two or three rows of characters at the bottom of the passport biodata page.

Foreign visitors who have visited Singapore before can also auto-populate their passport details by using the built-in camera function in the app to scan the machine-readable zone of their passport biodata pages.

However, a physical