Lost Your SG Arrival Card Confirmation? How to Recover It

The short answer: your card is not lost

Take a breath: there is nothing to lose. Singapore discontinued the paper disembarkation/embarkation card on 27 March 2020, and the SG Arrival Card (SGAC) that replaced it is an electronic record. At immigration the officer or the automated lane reads your passport and matches it against that record. The confirmation email is a receipt for the filing, not the filing itself.

So a deleted email is a paperwork annoyance, not an immigration problem. If the record is on file, you will clear. The card itself, filed or refiled, is free at ica.gov.sg or on the MyICA app. We are an independent filing service that charges $19 to handle the submission for travelers who would rather not; ICA does not endorse services like ours.

Why the acknowledgment email still matters

If the record does all the work, why chase the email? Two reasons. First, airline check-in staff occasionally ask to see proof of submission before boarding, and the acknowledgment ends that conversation in seconds. Second, it is your only personal proof that you filed — useful if a system hiccup ever puts your record in question.

Keep it until you have cleared immigration. That is the whole obligation. Printing it is optional; the email on your phone is enough, and a screenshot is a fine backup.

Four ways to recover your confirmation

Work through these in order; one of them almost always pays off:

A note on the third path: the update function is designed for corrections, but it doubles as proof of existence. If it finds your card, the submission is on ICA's side, and the absence of an email changes nothing at the counter.

Recovery paths, in order

• Search every corner of the inbox the card was filed with: the sender is ICA, and the subject line concerns your SG Arrival Card acknowledgment. Check spam and junk folders, then All Mail, since folder filters eat government mail.
• Open the MyICA app if you filed there. The app keeps your submission activity on the same profile you used.
• Use the Update SGAC lookup on the official e-Service. It asks for your passport number and date of birth; if it finds your card, the record exists and will be visible at immigration.
• Ask whoever filed the card. For Group Submission, the single acknowledgment covering the whole family goes to the email declared on that one submission — often a parent's or tour leader's inbox.

If the email never arrived

No acknowledgment usually means one of three things: the email address on the form was mistyped, the submission was never actually completed, or a spam filter swallowed the message. Each has a different fix, and the lookup tells you which one you are facing.

If the update lookup finds nothing under your passport number and date of birth, the filing never went through. That is not a crisis — the card is free, the window includes your arrival day, and you can file now using the steps in how to apply for the SGAC. Filing twice by accident, once properly and once half-finished, is not a problem worth fearing; what matters is that one complete submission exists.

At immigration without any confirmation

Arriving with the record on file but no email in sight is routine. Present your travel document at the staffed counter or the automated lane, exactly as every traveler does. The system matches your passport against the SGAC record; it does not scan your inbox.

Changi's automated lanes serve travelers aged six and above, including first-time visitors, and younger children use the staffed counters with an adult. The walkthrough is in our Changi arrival card guide.

What actually slows people down is having no card on file at all, because ICA's stated reason for the submission window is to avoid delays during clearance. Lost email: no delay. Missing record: questions at the counter. Those are different problems, and only the second one needs fixing before you fly.

How not to lose the next one

For future trips, three habits cover it. File one or two days before departure, once flights and hotel are final, so the acknowledgment arrives while you are still at home with wifi. Screenshot it the moment it lands. And file through the MyICA app if you travel to Singapore often, because your saved profile makes each later submission faster.

If you would rather skip the chasing entirely, we file the SGAC for $19, verify every field against your passport, and forward the acknowledgment within 24 hours — full refund if we fail to deliver. Or use the free official channels and keep the email somewhere you will find it. The wider rules are in the complete Singapore Arrival Card guide.

Frequently Asked Questions