0 lines Gro Plus photographed in the yard
Open a plant to read its permit class, or in the table.
What Gro Plus can bring into the Maldives
The Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Welfare publishes no list of importable plants. Every phytosanitary import permit names its own species, and since December 2025 each species shipped must sit on the permit held. This page rebuilds the importable universe from the law, the ministry's notices and the FAO flora surveys, marks each species by permit class, and links the precedent where one is on record. A species that has already cleared Velana is the surest bet for the next permit.
Species table
| Plate | Common name | Scientific name | Dhivehi (romanised) | Family | Permit class | Source | Shortlist |
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How a shipment gets in
The order below is the ministry's own, from the procedures it published on 4 March 2026 and the notices of March and December 2025. Miss a step and the consignment is held for three working days, then re-exported at your cost or destroyed.
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Permit on Makudi, species by species
Since 20 March 2025 the phytosanitary import permit is issued only online through the Makudi portal (eFaas login). Each permit lists the species it covers with common and scientific names, plant part and quantity, and it runs for six months. Expatriates importing for personal use, and anyone importing coconut palms, use the paper application form instead.
Approved List: No. | Common name | Scientific name | Plant part | QtyeFaas account -
Phytosanitary certificate from the exporting country
An original certificate issued by the exporter's National Plant Protection Organisation, on the IPPC model, naming every species and quantity in the shipment. Species or quantities not on the certificate are seized on arrival.
Original NPPO phytosanitary certificateBreeding letter, where the permit asks for one -
Prior import notification, at least 24 hours ahead
Send the flight or vessel number and arrival date, with copies of every document, either by email to the Plant and Animal Quarantine Unit or as a shipment notification in the Agriculture Online System. No notification, no guaranteed inspection slot.
Notification with flight or vessel numberPacking list, invoice, airway bill or bill of lading -
Arrive through Velana or Malé Commercial Harbour only
Plants and plant parts enter only at Velana International Airport (passengers and cargo, 08:00 to 23:30) or Malé Commercial Harbour (08:00 to 16:30). No soil or compost, no dried parts, roots packed in perlite, vermiculite, cotton, peat moss or rock wool, each species packed and labelled separately in English.
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Inspection, then release or hold
Inspectors hold a consignment for any of nine reasons: no prior permit, no valid certificate, missing breeding letter, soil on the plants, disease or symptoms, a prohibited species, more than the certified quantity or an uncertified species, suspect documents, or a consignment whose identity cannot be confirmed. Held goods wait three working days for a re-export request, then are destroyed. Feed, storage risk and disposal are all at the importer's cost.
What the law shuts out, and what it slows down
The Plant Protection Act (12/2011) and the Plant Quarantine Regulation set three hard limits and one slow lane. The species table applies them row by row.
Prohibited outright
- Coconut palm, all parts except timber under regulation section 9(a), now handled through the ministry's separate coconut import procedure with disease-free laboratory reports.
- Species listed as invasive by FAO and the regulation's annex, section 9(c). The FAO survey of the Maldives names the invaders already here; the table marks them "Do not import".
- Insects, micro-organisms, bacteria, transgenic or modified organisms without a specific permission, section 10.
- Anything else prohibited by another law or regulation, section 9(b).
The slow lane: plants not recorded in the Maldives
- Only an entity registered with the Plant and Animal Quarantine Unit may apply, and its memorandum must include agricultural research.
- A technical and scientific paper on the species goes in before any import.
- The unit may sample the plants; they stay on the island they were planted on for five years.
- A report is due 6 to 12 months after import, and a technical report per type before any sale or hand-over. Commercial use before clearance is prohibited.
Coconut palm procedure
- Plant and Plant Parts Import Application Form at least seven working days before the import date, with the exact number of palms and the correct genus and species.
- Laboratory report from an accredited plant-pathology lab, or one recognised by the exporter's NPPO, confirming freedom from Lethal Yellowing, Bud Rot, Root Rot and Cadang-Cadang.
- Phytosanitary certificate declaring freedom from Coconut Black-Headed Caterpillar (Opisina arenosella) and Palm Weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus).
Scale of the trade the rules govern
- About 2,000 parties held plant import permits by November 2025, plus three companies permitted for large-scale tree and timber imports.
- January to April 2025: 3,869,648 plants and plant parts in 405 shipments; 37 shipments (4,732 plants) seized for breaking the rules.
- Inter-island movement of plants is itself permitted, with 28 permits issued for islands declared free of the hispid beetle.
Sources
Every row cites the survey or notice it rests on by the code in its Source column. The ministry decides each permit; this page is a reference for filing, not legal advice. Download the full table as CSV.
Photographs
0 of the plates carry a photograph: 0 are Gro Plus's own nursery photographs and appear on the shelf; the rest are Wikimedia Commons and iNaturalist photographs under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, cropped and resized, each credited on its plate with its licence, and shown at full size only inside the plate beside that credit. A species with no free photograph ships without a plate.