The Bangladesh Bank travel quota is an annual entitlement, not a per-trip allowance, and it is counted against your passport rather than against you or against any single journey. Three trips in a year draw on one entitlement. Money released as physical notes is capped separately and more tightly than the entitlement as a whole, and spending on an international card issued by a Bangladeshi bank draws on the same pool. Bangladesh Bank revised the entitlement by circular on 6 September 2026.
This page is about how the limit is counted, which is the part that trips people up. What endorsement is and how cards work abroad are covered in our travel money guide for Bangladesh. Nothing here is financial advice, and your authorised dealer bank is the authority on your own position.
Per year, not per trip
The quota is annual. Bangladesh Customs, under the National Board of Revenue, states it as an annual figure on its passenger currency regulations page, read on 8 September 2026, and Bangladesh Bank’s circulars express the entitlement as an amount an authorised dealer may release for travel during a year rather than per journey.
The practical meaning is that a traveler who goes to Kathmandu in March, Bangkok in July and Dubai in November is drawing three times from one entitlement, not three separate ones. The destination matters for a different reason: the published position has long divided the entitlement between SAARC destinations and everywhere else, so a trip to a SAARC neighbor like Nepal and a trip to a non-SAARC destination like Thailand have historically drawn on differently sized portions of the same annual amount. Confirm the current split with your bank, because that is one of the things a circular can change.
What “counted against your passport” means
The passport is the unit of account. Endorsement is a record written against the passport, and Bangladesh Bank runs central monitoring systems that authorised dealers use to see what has already been released and spent against a given passport before they release more.
Three consequences follow, and they are the ones worth internalizing.
You cannot draw the same year’s entitlement twice by going to two banks. The record is central rather than per branch, and the second bank sees what the first one did.
Card spending is not invisible. An international card issued by a Bangladeshi bank is one of the forms the entitlement is released in, and its usage is reported into the same monitoring picture.
A new passport is not obviously a reset. If you are renewing, our guide to e-passport renewal timing covers the process, but how a renewal interacts with an existing endorsement record is a question to put to your authorised dealer bank rather than to work out from a website.
The five things that make travelers miscount
| The mistake | What is actually the case |
|---|---|
| Treating it as per trip | It is annual. Every trip in the year draws from the same entitlement |
| Treating the cash cap as the whole limit | Physical notes are capped separately and lower. The remainder of the entitlement is released in other permitted forms |
| Assuming a card is extra | Card spending draws on the same entitlement rather than adding to it |
| Assuming the entitlement is what the bank will hand over | The entitlement is a ceiling. What a branch releases depends on documents, your history against that passport, and currency availability on the day |
| Assuming an unused year is banked | The reported position is that an unused amount is not carried forward. Confirm with your bank before counting on it either way |
What we could confirm at source, and what we could not
This site does not publish money rules from travel blogs, so here is exactly where each piece of this article comes from.
| Tier | What it covers | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Read on an issuing authority’s own page, 8 September 2026 | That Bangladesh Bank’s circular index lists FEPD-1 Circular No. 33, dated 6 September 2026, subject “Release of foreign exchange for travel abroad.” That Bangladesh Bank’s Guidelines for Foreign Exchange Transactions, Volume 1, carries a chapter on travel. That Bangladesh Customs’ passenger page states an annual outbound ceiling, a SAARC and non-SAARC split, a per-trip cash limit, a reduced entitlement for minors, and a Form FMJ declaration threshold, citing FE Circulars from 2014 and 2015 | Confirmed at source, and the customs figures are older than the September 2026 circular |
| Consistently reported, not confirmed by us at source | That the entitlement is counted on a calendar year running 1 January to 31 December, that an unused amount does not carry into the following year, and that a bank may endorse across multiple years of a passport’s validity while usage stays capped within each year | Reported in Bangladeshi financial press coverage of successive circulars. Confirm with your bank |
| Not published here | The current entitlement figure set by the 6 September 2026 circular | We could not read the circular’s text. Its PDF did not render as readable text for us, and a legal ceiling on money you carry should come from the issuer |
That middle tier is the honest answer to the most common version of this question. We are not going to state a calendar-year boundary as settled fact on our own authority when we could not read it on a Bangladesh Bank page, and we are not going to hide the fact that it is what everyone reports either.
The year boundary, and a trip that straddles it
If the annual count runs on the calendar, a trip that begins in late December and ends in January sits in two entitlement years, and reporting on Bangladesh Bank’s travel circulars has consistently described it that way: the portion used up to 31 December comes from one year’s entitlement and the portion from 1 January comes from the next.
For a traveler, the planning implication is the same either way and it does not depend on which reading is right. If your trip crosses the new year, ask your bank how they will endorse it before you book, because the answer changes what they can release to you in one visit. Ask in the same conversation whether anything is left of the current year, because they can see it and you cannot.
What sits outside the travel quota
Not every foreign exchange release for going abroad comes from the travel entitlement. Bangladesh Bank issues separate circulars for particular purposes, and its 2025 and 2026 circular index includes releases for study abroad through international cards and for visa bonds or refundable security deposits. Medical treatment abroad has historically been handled under its own provision as well.
If your trip is study, treatment, migration or employment, it is not the ordinary personal-travel case and the travel quota is probably not the rule that governs it. That is a conversation with your authorised dealer bank, and it is worth having before you buy anything.
Separately, the travel quota has nothing to do with the government charge collected on international departures. That is a tax rather than a currency entitlement, it is administered by the National Board of Revenue, and we have covered who pays Bangladesh travel tax and how it is collected on its own page.
What we will not publish
No entitlement figure that we could not read on the issuing authority’s page. No worked example built on an unconfirmed number, because a worked example makes a shaky figure look solid. No advice on what to do with your money, no comparison of banks, and nothing at all about moving money outside the banking channel. Those routes are illegal in Bangladesh and the enforcement lands on the traveler.
What this page will do is get updated. It carries a 90-day review interval, and the September 2026 circular is the reason the interval exists.
Where to check, in order
- Your authorised dealer bank, for the current entitlement, what remains against your passport this year, and which circular they are applying.
- Bangladesh Bank, bb.org.bd, for the Guidelines for Foreign Exchange Transactions and the Foreign Exchange Policy Department circular index.
- Bangladesh Customs, under the National Board of Revenue, for what may physically leave the country and for Form FMJ.
- The destination country’s customs authority, for the separate question of what you must declare when you land.
If this is your first trip out of the country, the money question is one line on a longer list, and the rest of it is in our first international trip from Bangladesh checklist.
Sources read on 8 September 2026: the Bangladesh Bank circular index at bb.org.bd; the Bangladesh Bank Guidelines for Foreign Exchange Transactions, Volume 1, travel chapter; and the Bangladesh Customs currency regulations page for passengers.
FAQ
Is the Bangladesh Bank travel quota per trip or per year?
Per year. Every trip you take in the year draws on the same entitlement rather than each one carrying its own.
Does an unused travel quota carry over to next year?
Reporting on Bangladesh Bank’s travel circulars has consistently said it does not. We were unable to confirm that on a Bangladesh Bank page, so treat it as the reported position and confirm with your authorised dealer bank before planning around it.
How much is the travel quota now?
Bangladesh Bank revised it by circular on 6 September 2026. We could not read that circular’s text at source and so publish no figure. Bangladesh Customs’ passenger page, read 8 September 2026, still carries the older annual position with its SAARC and non-SAARC split, citing circulars from 2014 and 2015. Ask your bank for the current number.
Does my international card spending count against the quota?
Yes. A card issued by a Bangladeshi bank is a form in which the entitlement is released, not an addition to it, and usage is visible through Bangladesh Bank’s monitoring systems.
Do children get a travel quota?
Bangladesh Customs’ passenger page states a reduced entitlement for minors, at half the adult amount, on the older published position. Confirm the current treatment and the age cutoff with your bank.