Guanaja - Clearance
This is a Port of Entry.
See Honduras Formalities for full details on clearance.
General Clearance
Anchor to the west of Bonacca town for clearance.
Dinghy ashore and make your way to the Immigration office. To reach it walk past the Port Captain’s office to the end of the path and turn right, go almost to the end (2nd to last). After completing Immigration, return to the Port Captain’s office.
Each office requires photocopies of each passport and of ships papers, 4 sets. The Port Captain will require a photo of the yacht and will arrange a sail past at a set time.
You can stay for 90 days and can apply for an additional 30-day extension in Roatan.
Boats must not move from Guanaja until clearance formalities are complete. Boats that have gone directly to El Bight have been fined.
When clearing out of Honduras here it is only possible to get an international Zarpe on the day of departure.
Official Fees:
Recent cruiser reports indicate an easy clearance process – not fast and no problems, with no fees payable. See the comments section (indicated by the speech bubble icon) for the latest information.
Last updated: May 2023
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Related to following destinations: Bay Islands, Guanaja, Honduras
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Previous comment here is still good, as to the comments below that – we had no trouble or fees for checking in coming from the Caymans. Check into Guanaja was easy, anchored to the west of Bonacca in 10′ in grass for clearance. Dinghy dock with the pangas south side of warehouse “big sales”. You will likely run into a “guide” that will show you around expecting a tip & speaks good English. Immigration first then the port captain, not fast but no problem.
SIM cards, groceries & fresh veggies along with reasonable restaurants easily found.
We then moved to the Bight for a week: 20′ of sand and great wind protection just off of Hans’ (good pizza), just south of Manati’s (good food, sat only presently – gringo social) dinghied to Mi Casa II for excellent Lionfish. Dove with “End of the World Divers” on the north side for a very good 2 tank dive. Lots of hiking, local restaurants, wonderful stop!
Checked out of Guanaja today. Immigration was quick and easy and we were told no fees. When we get to the Port Captain’s office he tells us it will be $75 for the Zarpe. After waiting for an hour and questioning why we were told there was no fee and we knew people who checked out with none he finally said “ok no problem” and let us go without a fee. So I guess I can only say to question authority. If he had demanded it we would have asked for a receipt. That may have worked too?
Jan 11, 2019 12:08 AM
Corruption alert Guanaja!
Immigration:
We checked in to Roatan, easy and free of charge!
However when we tried to check out of Guanaja, a guy on the street came running to us asking if we were checking out, I said – naive as I am, “Yes we are.” He then run to the Immigration office and entered before us. Shook the officers hand, and took the job as our translator, Which we did not need. But we could not just throw him out of the office, Afterwards he wanted a little something for the “job” of course… This seemed to be a deal between them, sometimes it seemed the immigration officer was faking his lack of English knowledge.
The Immigration officer claimed he could not stamp out my crewmember, because he has been in Colombia 6 months before (stamp in his passport), and it is required to have a yellow fever card if you have been there. (To be clear- that is not the case. My crew checked with his doctor in Norway, and he did not have to have a Yellow fever card to go to Colombia, it is only recommended in certain areas.) He said my guy had to get a flight to la Ceiba to get a yellow fever shot for (he specified) $160 USD, then fly back to Guanaja and then get the stamped passport back. We had to sit there with hat in hand and ask if there was any other way. And of course he could “help” us out if we gave him something for “refurbishing the office”. We ended up giving him 1000 Limpiri ($40 USD got it down from 160…) and we had to give the Translator 100 Limpiri.
Our friend in another boat also had similar issues. He did not have a receipt for the check-in fee in Utila, and had to pay that again ($4 USD? there is no receipt for this fee as far as I know).
Another family tried to check out after that and were told they needed to have a Zarpe for leaving Roatan, and he demanded a fee, He got none.
Port Captain:
He was not corrupt (to my knowledge) but he was rather grumpy, and did not give us (or the other two boats) a Zarpe until after 16:00. At 16:00 we went to his office and we were refused a Zarpe as we were planning to leave the next day. We had to go to him 2 hours before leaving to get the Zarpe he said.
The next day we learned that there was recently 2 boats overstaying for about a month each after checking out, as they were waiting for the weather. This might explain why he refused to give us the Zarpe.
Yellow fever vaccine is a requirement for entering Honduras from Colombia and Panama (and several other countries) They are cracking down on it.