Rules · 5 min read
Bangladesh NEIR: 30 Days on a Local SIM, 90 Without Registration
Does this apply to you? (the short answer first)
Bangladesh runs NEIR — the National Equipment Identity Register — and it blocks handsets, not SIM cards. The regulator BTRC states the visitor rule on its own portal in one sentence: “Yes, if you intend to use it beyond 30 days with a local SIM.” That condition — with a local SIM — is the whole question for anyone travelling with a foreign phone.
A travel eSIM bought here is a roaming profile issued outside Bangladesh. It is not a local SIM, so on the text as published the visitor duty does not attach to it. That is the useful part. The uncomfortable part is in the next section: the same portal gives a second number, and does not reconcile the two.
If you are staying under a month, nothing here changes your trip. If you are staying longer — study, work, family — read on, because the thing that gets blocked is the handset, on every Bangladeshi network at once.
What BTRC’s own portal says, word for word
Two questions in the FAQ of neir.btrc.gov.bd, read 13 September 2026. The English and Bengali versions say the same thing, including the words “local SIM” and “স্থানীয় SIM”.
I am a foreign visitor. Do I need to register my phone? — “Yes, if you intend to use it beyond 30 days with a local SIM.”
How long can I use my phone without special registration? — “You can use your phone on mobile networks without special registration for up to 90 days. To continue using the device beyond this period, you must complete the special registration process within these 90 days. Otherwise, your device will be blocked, and you will need to contact the regulatory authority (BTRC) to unblock it.”
And what special registration covers: “This applies to devices that do not fall under the standard registration process, such as: * Personal imports * Devices purchased while traveling abroad * Devices belonging to foreign visitors.”
Thirty or ninety? The regulator states both and reconciles neither
Read strictly, the two answers are about different things: 30 days is a visitor’s phone on a local SIM, 90 days is any device on mobile networks without special registration. Read as a traveller reads them, they collide — the same portal, the same day, two different deadlines for a phone brought from abroad.
We are not going to pick the comfortable one. If you intend to put a Bangladeshi SIM in a foreign handset and stay past a month, 30 days is the number that can cost you the phone. The 90-day sentence does not say “instead of 30”, and BTRC has published nothing that sequences them.
What a travel eSIM does and does not settle
An eSIM for Bangladesh from our own catalogue is a data-only roaming profile on GrameenPhone’s network. No Bangladeshi subscription is created, no local number is issued, and no counter at which a document is shown. On BTRC’s wording the visitor registration duty is not triggered, because that duty is written around a local SIM.
What is not settled: whether the 90-day device window runs on roaming alone. No BTRC page states it either way, and we did not find one that does. We are leaving that open rather than inventing an answer — the same way we handle the unresolved travel-eSIM question in Türkiye.
What special registration asks for, and how long it takes
Documents, in BTRC’s list: Documents such as:
* Passport
* Visa
* Entry stamp
* Foreign purchase invoice
* Other supporting IDs.
The exact list of documents can vary depending on the reason for the application.
Timing and refusal, in BTRC’s words: “This is a manual verification process managed by the regulatory authority (BTRC). You can expect the results within 3–5 working days.” And it can be rejected — “Yes, for incorrect documents or travel information and incomplete applications.”
Checking a handset needs no account: send KYD followed by a space and the 15-digit IMEI to 16002, and the reply states the status. Dialling *16001# lists the mobile numbers registered under a national ID — useful to a resident, not to a visitor.
What the press reported, and what we could not confirm
Three numbers circulate in Bangladeshi coverage, and none of them is on a BTRC page we could read. A notice from the Posts and Telecommunications Division dated 3 December 2025 is reported as giving expatriates 60 days before registration becomes mandatory (Views Bangladesh, 3 December 2025). The chief adviser’s special assistant described an SMS instructing registration within 30 days of first connection (BSS, 31 October 2025; the same figure in The Business Standard).
Enforcement itself moved: NEIR was announced for 16 December 2025 and deferred to 1 January 2026 by a BTRC press release of 15 December 2025 (Prothom Alo).
We could not read the PTD notice itself. The BTRC portal at btrc.portal.gov.bd is switched off by the government — it answers “Domain is not available”, and that is not our network: an independent connection gets the same page. The one BTRC notice we did read, dated 9 December 2025, is addressed to handset traders about submitting IMEIs of unsold stock by 15 December 2025 — not to travellers. So: 60 days is press, 30 and 90 days are BTRC.
How we know
Read at the regulator, 13 September 2026: the visitor rule, the 90-day window, the scope of special registration, the document list, the 3–5 working-day review and the refusal grounds — all from the FAQ of neir.btrc.gov.bd, in English and Bengali.
Not verified, named openly: the 60-day figure for expatriates (press only), the text of the PTD notice of 3 December 2025, and whether a roaming-only profile starts the 90-day device clock. A practical note on method: the portal is a single-page application, so its FAQ is assembled in the browser from a dictionary the same domain serves; we read that dictionary and checked each answer against the FAQ structure in the same file. Nothing here is paraphrase — the quotes are the regulator’s sentences.
Which rule touches you, country by country, is in what applies to you.