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Santo Domingo -From May 2018 to April 2022, 22,542 refunds have been approved for the payment of the Tourist Card, which would mean 225,420 dollars..
The refund (of 10 dollars) can be requested by Dominicans, residents in the Dominican Republic, and foreign diplomatic and consular officials accredited in the country, while their functions last and they enter an official mission.
The Tourist Card emerged in 1967, when through Law 199-67 its payment was established as a means of entering the Dominican Republic for tourism purposes, without the need to opt for a visa for nationals.
Yes, all you have to do is bring documented proof your flight to the nearest DGII office to wait and hope they will take care of you. Is it worth it? What value is the tourist’s time and travel expense to get a refund?
A better way is not to have to pay the tax. Abolish it !!!
I agree with Paul. It shouldn’t be charged for refund-eligible groups in the first place.
My mother-in-law (RD citizen) came to visit my wife and me in New York last year. We extended her trip several times since airlines now are much more lenient allowing no-fee changes. Upon her return we did the online refund process but because the original return-to-RD flight got changed several times, DGII couldn’t “track it” through the changes and denied the refund. We called, DGII said they’d manually review it etc. and of course, we never heard back. Called again, same story etc. Finally we gave up – it was costing more in our time than the refund was worth.
The problem is that it’s a revenue generator- even from their own citizens. So there’s no impetus to fix it by changing the way it’s currently done. It’s an example of something rushed into place without thinking of the downstream impact ahead of time.
I agree that it is a revenue generator from everybody including citizens. The tax was not “rushed into place without thinking”. It was done with a calculated refund bureaucracy to make it bothersome to pursue a tax refund. The bothersome part of the refund formula creates unclaimed funds, advantages the government to use it as it wished.