Bangladesh visa portal breakdown leaves applicants stranded abroad

Visa applicants across the globe have been plunged into disruption following the crash of Bangladesh’s central online visa application and processing system.

The Department of Immigration and Passports, which runs the portal, has offered no timeline for restoring the service.

The prolonged outage has halted application submissions and created severe processing backlogs, prompting several Bangladeshi diplomatic missions to issue urgent notices.

Officials at multiple overseas embassies reported receiving a barrage of complaints via phone and email from frustrated applicants.

As of 7pm Bangladesh time on Tuesday, the portal (http://www.visa.gov.bd/) remained completely inaccessible from both Europe and Asia.

Speaking to bdnews24.com on Tuesday afternoon, ATM Abu Asad, additional director general (Passport, Visa, and Immigration) at the department, said that work was under way to resolve the technical failure.

He, however, declined to disclose the specific nature of the glitch.

A director-level official at the department, speaking on condition of anonymity, revealed that the server failure began last Thursday, entirely blocking online submissions and processing.

Although the official claimed limited functionality was restored on Tuesday after five days of complete downtime, embassy staff confirmed that applicants still cannot submit new forms.

In an urgent notice on Sept 23, the Bangladesh High Commission in London warned of delays in processing and issuing visas, alongside No Visa Required (NVR) endorsements, due to system failures.

The mission urged applicants to refrain from sending continuous inquiries while technical teams worked on a resolution.

Similar notices were issued by Bangladeshi embassies in Berlin, Bangkok, and Lisbon.

On Monday, the embassy in Bangkok advised travellers to avoid scheduling trips reliant on urgent visa processing until the portal is fully operational, acknowledging that applicants may experience significant disruption while technicians work to restore service.

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