The Aruba ED Card for Families.
Every passenger files one, from the grandparents to the 4-month-old. Who pays the $20, how a household files, and what to do about a typo.
The check-in agent asks for the QR codes, plural, and somewhere between the stroller and the car seat you realize you filed 3. There are 4 of you. The fourth is 7 months old, asleep on your shoulder, and has never filled in a form in her life, which is exactly why you were supposed to do it for her.
Aruba's Embarkation and Disembarkation card, the ED card to everyone who has filed one, is the online form every visitor completes before landing. The rules for 1 adult fit on a sticky note. The rules for a family are where people come unstuck: who counts as a traveler, who pays the fee, whether 1 form covers a household, and what happens when a name goes in wrong. This is that part, taken from the official site's own wording.
The short answer
Quick answer
Does a baby need an Aruba ED card?
Yes. Every person entering Aruba needs their own ED card, infants and children included. The form is free on the official site, edcardaruba.aw. Children under 8 pay no sustainability fee, and everyone 8 and older who arrives by air pays $20 (AWG 35.80), once a year per passport. The form accepts arrival dates up to 7 days ahead, and the airline checks your QR code before you board.
The Aruba Tourism Authority does not leave room for interpretation. No age floor, no exception for the passenger who sleeps through the whole flight and never sees the island from the air.
"The Aruba ED Card (Embarkation/Disembarkation) is a mandatory requirement for all individuals, including infants and children, entering Aruba."
1 each
ED cards per family: one for every traveler, newborns included
$0
Sustainability fee for children under 8
$20
Fee for each traveler 8 and older (AWG 35.80)
7 days
How far ahead of arrival the form opens
Is the ED card free?
The card is. The fee that rides along with it is not. Filing the ED card on the official site costs nothing. At the end of the same form, the site collects a separate $20 (AWG 35.80) sustainability fee from each non-resident traveler arriving by air, payable by Visa, Mastercard or Discover. It appears on your statement as Aruba Wastewater, which is an alarming line to find on a vacation receipt and nothing to worry about.
The card is free. The fee is $20. Most of the confusion online lives in the gap between those 2 sentences.
The fee is paid once a year per passport. A traveler who renews a passport within the year pays again on the next entry, according to the Aruba Tourism Authority. Repeat visitors who come back within the same year pay at checkout and then request a refund, with proof, from info@awss.aw.
The Aruba Tourism Authority lists who does not pay it:
- Children under 8.
- Registered residents of Aruba.
- Crew members.
- Same-day visitors.
- Repeat visitors who already paid within the year, who pay again at checkout and claim the refund.
What a family of 4 pays
Sustainability fee for a family of 4, one trip
The under-8 rule is printed on the official payment screen in 1 line, so there is nothing to claim and no form to attach. If the total at checkout looks like it is charging your toddler, stop and check the birth date you typed before you pay.
"Children under the age of 8 are exempt from the sustainability fee."
It is a small number, and it is the kind of small number that is missing from most trip budgets, next to the other line items in the costs most people forget.
How a family files
Here the guides are blunt about it: there is no group application, so fill in an individual form for each person.
Both are true in the way that matters. Each person still gets their own ED card, with their own passport details and their own QR code. The household button lets you enter everyone in one sitting, and the Aruba Tourism Authority says the fee can be paid together for groups of up to 10. What it does not do is merge the family into one card. There is no family QR code.
Two families, one villa
Grandparents, cousins and the friends splitting the villa are not your household, whatever the group chat is called. The form says grouped members must come from the same household, so each household files its own application and pays its own fees. One person can still do the typing for everyone: the site's own notes allow information provided on your behalf by a designated third party. It just has to be correct, because you are the one standing at the desk.
What each person needs
Have these open before you start, for every traveler
- Their own passportThe passport shown on arrival must be the one used on the form. Children with child passports file with those.
- Name and date of birth exactly as printed in that passport
- Flight details in and outThe form looks up flights by airline and date, so book before you file.
- The address where you are staying on the island
- An email address you can open at the airportThe proof of submission goes there, and it is required on entry.
- A Visa, Mastercard or Discover cardOnly needed if anyone in the household is 8 or older.
Budget some time for the form. With a lap infant, budget that and then the extra time the lap infant has opinions about.
- 01
Open edcardaruba.aw, and only that
Type the address yourself rather than tapping a search result. The section on lookalike sites below explains why.
- 02
Enter the first traveler
Passport details first, or a photo of the passport page, then personal details, contact information and flights, in the order the form asks.
- 03
Add each family member
Use Add Family Member for everyone in the same household, infants included. Check each passport number against the passport in your hand, not the one in your memory.
- 04
Read the review page slowly
This is the step where the official FAQ says you can still edit. Click the section header, fix it, and come back.
- 05
Pay for everyone 8 and older
Visa, Mastercard or Discover. Children under 8 are exempt.
- 06
Save every QR code
The proof of submission arrives by email. Check the spam folder if it does not, then keep each traveler's code on the phone that will be in your hand at check-in.
Pros of One household application versus a separate form for each person
- 1 sitting and 1 payment for the whole household.
- Every proof of submission goes to the email address you entered.
- Nobody gets forgotten, because the list of travelers is on screen in front of you.
Cons of One household application versus a separate form for each person
- It only works for people from the same household.
- One inbox now holds the whole family's entry papers, so it had better be one you can open at the airport.
- The official FAQ still says to file 1 form per person, so if the button misbehaves, that is your fallback.
There is no family QR code. There is a family of QR codes, and the airline would like to see all of them.
Fixing a name you typed wrong
The official FAQ is strict on this. It allows one application per trip per person, and edits happen on the review page, before you submit. It warns that even minor errors or typos can cause problems processing the form or entering the country later, and the passport number gets its own confirmation box for that reason.
If you have already submitted
There is no edit button on a submitted card. The visitaruba.com guide says to submit a new one with the correct information, and that the fee is not charged again if it was already paid. If a second filing does charge you twice, the Aruba Tourism Authority sends duplicate charges to a refund request at info@awss.aw, with the details of both payments. Do it the same week; the refund window is limited.
Myth
A misspelled name is fine. They will sort it out at immigration.
Reality
The immigration officer decides on entry at the desk, and small typos can cause problems at the border. Fix it before you fly, while the only person inconvenienced is you.
The same goes for changes nobody chose. If a flight is missed or canceled and you travel on a different one, the official FAQ says to apply again. If you extend the stay once you are on the island, the card needs no edit; extensions go through the immigration office in Oranjestad.
When the window opens
The form only accepts an arrival date within 7 days, and the Aruba Tourism Authority words it as within the 7 days before your travel. For a Saturday arrival, that means filing opens around the Saturday before, not the evening you booked the flights in a burst of optimism.
The visitaruba.com guide suggests filing 24 to 72 hours before departure, which leaves time to fix a mistake. With children, the early end of that range is kinder. The night before a dawn flight is not when you want to discover that the 6-year-old's passport is in a drawer at the grandparents' house.
Put it in the calendar
Set a reminder for 5 days before you fly, with every passport number, both flight numbers and the hotel address in the note. Filing turns into copying.The official site, and the ones that look official
There is 1 official address, edcardaruba.aw ↗. The .aw ending is Aruba's own country domain, and the Aruba Tourism Authority links to it directly from its Before you travel page.
Search for the ED card and the top results are often something else: lookalike sites that fill in the same government form for you and add their own service fee. The Aruba Tourism Authority says plainly that these sites are not affiliated with Aruba's immigration services. The prices vary, and the visitaruba.com guide reports offers of $80 to $100 or more. Multiply that by a family of 5 and the extra is a nice dinner, eaten by someone else.
"Many websites appear in search results offering to process your ED Card for $80–$100 or more. The only legitimate cost is $20."
The tell is the checkout. On the official site, the only charge is the $20 sustainability fee for each traveler 8 and older, so the family of 4 above, with a 3-year-old, pays $60 (AWG 107.40). If the screen asks for anything more, close the tab.
What the QR code is for
When the form goes through, each traveler gets a qualifier, a document with a QR code, sent by email. It does 2 jobs. Your airline checks it before you board, and border control scans it when you land at Queen Beatrix International Airport. The official site calls it proof of submission and says it is required on entry.
So the codes need to live on a phone that works at the departure gate, not in an inbox that needs a signal you may not have. Screenshot every one, and name the files so the 3-year-old's code is not the one you hunt for at the counter. If you are still sorting out data for the trip, the eSIM and physical SIM guide covers which option holds up after landing.
The flight home has its own paperwork and its own clock, and the 3-hour departure advice for US-bound flights is in the tips section of our Aruba guide.
Everything after the arrivals hall, from the ride to the hotel to where to stay, is in the Aruba destination guide.
Our take
The ED card is not hard. It is just per person, and families are the travelers most likely to forget that a person can weigh 15 pounds (7 kg). File as a household on the official site, inside the 7-day window, read the passport numbers twice, and pay $20 for everyone 8 and over and nothing for anyone under. The rest is screenshots.
Somewhere over the water the baby will wake, look out of the window at nothing in particular, and go back to sleep. She lands in Aruba with her own card and her own code, and no idea any of it happened. Someone in the family should get to arrive like that.
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Common questions about the Aruba ED card for families.
The ones parents ask most before they fly. If yours is not here, write to us.
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