Covid Vaccine Certificate in Pakistan: How to Download From NIMS NADRA

The Covid vaccine certificate is still issued in Pakistan, from the same NIMS NADRA portal that issued it in 2021, for a fee of Rs 100. We read the portal on 17 September 2026. It now carries a second button for polio and yellow fever certificates, and since 14 September 2026 airports have been asking outbound passengers for a NADRA vaccination certificate before boarding, according to Business Recorder and Profit. This is how to download either one by CNIC or by passport, and how to fix a wrong passport number.

Type nims.nadra.gov.pk into a browser and the first thing you see is a spinning "Connection Lost. Trying to reconnect" line, then two big buttons, one for Covid and one for other vaccines. The site has not had a redesign since the pandemic. Its footer still says copyright 2022, Ministry of Health. But it works, and for anyone flying out of Pakistan this month it has suddenly become the most important government page after the passport office.

The fee is the one figure people ask about most. The portal's own FAQ, in Urdu, puts the covid vaccine certificate at Rs 100, and the Ministry of National Health Services says the same Rs 100 one-time fee applies to each polio or yellow fever certificate download. The vaccine itself is free.

Is the Covid vaccine certificate still issued in Pakistan?

Yes. The Covid button on nims.nadra.gov.pk still opens the same form it did in 2021, asking for a CNIC, its issue date and a mobile number, and the FAQ beneath it still lists the Rs 100 fee and the 1166 SMS line. Nothing on the portal says the Covid certificate has been withdrawn.

One thing to know before you try. When we requested the portal directly from our own machine, with a normal browser identity, every page answered 403 Access Denied with an Akamai reference number. NADRA's main site did the same. That is the automated-traffic block that NADRA puts in front of its whole estate, not an outage, and we could read every page below through a rendering proxy. If your browser gets the same message, it is usually a VPN or a company network being treated as a bot. Switch to mobile data and try again.

The menu on the Covid page also lists registration for vaccination, registration of an overseas vaccination record, and reporting of side effects. Those are pandemic-era functions. We did not test whether a new Covid vaccination can still be booked through them, and nothing on the page says.

How do you download the certificate with a CNIC?

Open the portal, pick the button for the certificate you need, fill in three fields and a captcha, pay Rs 100 and save the PDF. The whole thing takes a few minutes if your vaccination was recorded properly, and the fee is the only cost.

1. Open nims.nadra.gov.pk in a browser and choose the Covid button, or the other-vaccines button for polio and yellow fever.
2. Enter your 13 digit CNIC number without dashes. The same field accepts an Afghan POR number. Answer whether you hold a CRC, the Afghan citizen card.
3. Enter the CNIC issue date exactly as printed on the card. This is the field that trips people up, because the date of issue is on the front of the card in small print and is not the date of birth.
4. On the polio and yellow fever page, choose the vaccine from the list. The Covid page has no selector.
5. Enter your mobile number and pick the operator from the list: Ufone, Jazz, Zong, Warid or Telenor.
6. Type the captcha, continue, add your passport number and nationality if you are travelling, and pay Rs 100 by card or through e-Sahulat. Download the certificate, which carries a QR code.

The certificate can also be collected at a NADRA centre, according to the portal's FAQ, and the mobile apps linked from the portal are meant to store it on a phone. On 17 September 2026 the Apple App Store listing for the PAK Covid-19 Vaccination Pass returned a 404 on both the Pakistan and the United States storefronts, and the Google Play listing returned a 404 to our request. Treat the PDF as the copy that matters, and keep it on your phone and in an email to yourself.

A note on the fee. NADRA's counter fees for identity documents are set out in the NADRA fee structure for all documents, and the Rs 100 for a vaccination certificate does not appear in that schedule, because the certificate is a Ministry of Health service that NADRA hosts. The Rs 100 is the price on the ministry's page and the portal's own FAQ, and nothing we read suggests a higher urgent-fee tier.

How do you get it with a passport instead of a CNIC?

Foreign nationals and Pakistanis vaccinated on a passport record use the passport form at /nims/payment, titled "Issuance Of Immunization certificate". The form asks for the passport number, the vaccine, and a captcha, and it then goes to the same Rs 100 payment step. The Covid page also carries a "Foreign Nationals Registration" item, which is how a foreigner got into the system in the first place.

Overseas Pakistanis with a NICOP use the CNIC route, because the NICOP number is a 13 digit NADRA number and the field accepts it. Make sure the card you enter is the one your vaccination was recorded against. A person vaccinated in 2021 on an old CNIC who has since been issued a NICOP should try the old number first.

If you plan to travel on a passport that has been renewed since your vaccination, read the next section before you pay, because the certificate prints the passport number you give it, and airlines check that it matches the passport in your hand. The official passport fee rates are worth a look at the same time if the renewal is still ahead of you, since a normal passport takes weeks and the certificate takes minutes.

How do you correct a passport number on the certificate?

Through the portal's data correction request, not by paying again for a new download. The Covid page has a "Correction in vaccination record" item in its menu with a "Details of the complaint" item under it to check progress. For foreign nationals, the correction form at /nims/registerComplaintFN asks for the passport number and a mobile number, and its instruction reads, in full, "Provide your passport number for correction in the Covid-19 vaccination record."

Two cautions. The private guides that rank for this topic say you should log in again and pay a second Rs 100 for a corrected certificate. We found no such instruction on the portal, and the correction form does not mention a fee. And the correction is reviewed by a person, so it is not instant. File it the day you book a flight, not the day you fly.

Whatever the fix, do not travel on a certificate whose passport number differs from your passport. A mismatch is the same to an airline counter as no certificate at all, and the airport now has a reason to look.

Which countries or airports still ask for it in 2026?

The question has turned around. Nobody we could find still asks for a Covid certificate at a border, but Pakistan's own airports now ask for a NADRA vaccination certificate on the way out. From 14 September 2026, Business Recorder and Profit reported, the Airport Health Department accepts only NADRA-integrated vaccination proof for outbound international passengers. Hospital cards and handwritten cards are refused.

The vaccines covered are polio, meningitis, yellow fever and influenza, according to those reports, with yellow fever relevant only for travel to or through parts of Africa and the Americas. Hajj and Umrah pilgrims are directed to the Federal Government Civil Dispensary for their vaccinations, and anyone hoping to be vaccinated at the airport is told to arrive six hours before the flight. Aaj English reported that Karachi's Jinnah International Airport applied the rule first, with Peshawar, Islamabad and Lahore to follow.

We have not found the department's notification on the health ministry's website, so all of that is reported rather than read at source, and we would expect the details to shift in the first weeks. The polio requirement itself is not new. Pakistan is one of two countries where wild polio still spreads, and the case count in Pakistan's polio cases for 2026 is why Saudi Arabia and others have long asked Pakistani travellers for polio proof. What is new is that the proof must now come from NIMS.

For Umrah travellers, this lands on top of the other paperwork changes this year, including the mandatory Umrah food vouchers, so build the Rs 100 certificate into the checklist and do it before the airport.

What if the portal will not load?

Try mobile data first, then a different browser, then wait an hour. The 403 Access Denied page we hit is Akamai's bot filter, and it also blocks corporate networks and some VPN exits. The "Connection Lost" line at the top of the page is a live-update message that appears on every load and does not mean the site is down.

If the portal is genuinely offline, it tends to go down with the rest of NADRA's estate, and the notes on what to do when the NADRA website is down apply here: the record is on NADRA's side, so nothing is lost, and a NADRA centre can print the certificate over the counter for the same fee.

Common questions about the NIMS NADRA certificate

How much does the Covid vaccine certificate cost in Pakistan?

Rs 100 per download, according to the portal's FAQ and the health ministry's page. The vaccination itself is free.

Can I still download my Covid certificate in 2026?

Yes. The Covid form on nims.nadra.gov.pk was live on 17 September 2026 and asks for CNIC, issue date and mobile number.

How do I get a polio certificate from NADRA?

Use the other-vaccines button on the same portal, choose the vaccine from the list, enter CNIC, issue date and mobile, pay Rs 100 and download. The vaccine must first be recorded by the centre that gave it.

Do I need the NADRA certificate to fly out of Pakistan?

According to Business Recorder and Profit, yes, from 14 September 2026 for polio, meningitis, yellow fever and influenza as applicable. We could not read the notification at source.

How do I fix a wrong passport number?

File a data correction request on the portal. Foreign nationals use the passport-number form at /nims/registerComplaintFN, CNIC holders use the correction item in the Covid page menu.

Why does the portal say Access Denied?

NADRA blocks automated and some corporate or VPN traffic. Switch to mobile data or another browser. It is a block, not an outage.

Last checked and sources

Last checked 17 September 2026. We requested nims.nadra.gov.pk and its certificate, certificate-other and payment pages directly on that date and received 403 Access Denied with an Akamai reference on every one, which is NADRA's bot filter rather than a fault, and we then read the same pages through a rendering proxy. From those pages we took the portal title, Immunization Program, the 2022 Ministry of Health footer, the Covid form fields of ID card number, CRC holder question, CNIC issue date, mobile number and operator, the polio and yellow fever form with its vaccine selector, the passport-number issuance form, the passport-number data correction form and its instruction, the menu items for verification and record correction, the links to the Google Play and Apple apps, and the Urdu FAQ stating the Rs 100 certificate fee, the free vaccine, the free 1166 SMS line, and collection from a NADRA centre or the website. We read the Ministry of National Health Services page on nhsrc.gov.pk announcing the polio and yellow fever certificate system through NIMS with NADRA, with its one-time Rs 100 fee per download and its statement that vaccine centres enter data directly. The airport rule from 14 September 2026, the four vaccines, the refusal of hospital and handwritten cards, the Federal Government Civil Dispensary for pilgrims and the six-hour advice are reported by Business Recorder and Profit by Pakistan Today, both of 14 September 2026, and the airport sequence by Aaj English; we did not find the Airport Health Department's notification online. The Apple App Store listing returned 404 on the Pakistan and United States storefronts and the Google Play listing returned 404 to our request on 17 September 2026, so the apps are described as we found them and not as withdrawn. We hold no vaccination record on the portal and did not complete a payment, so the payment screen itself is described from the ministry's page and the portal's FAQ rather than from a transaction.