Sipadan Dive Permits: Quota, Fees and How to Get One

Published sources currently put the Sabah Parks daily limit at 254 permits for Sipadan Island Park. Each permit allows three dives at Sipadan on that day, raised from two in May 2026. The 254 permits are divided unevenly across 42 registered operators and resorts, weighted by size, so no single operator can offer you more than its own daily allocation.

No. Permits are never sold to individuals. They are allocated to licensed operators and resorts, which submit their guests in advance against their daily quota. The only way to dive Sipadan is to book through an operator that holds an allocation, which is why your choice of resort, not your choice of date, is what decides whether you get on the island.

Because most pages quote a figure from whenever they were written and never update it. You will currently find 120, 176, 252 and 254 in circulation, and dive limits of both two and three. The best current figure is 254 per day with three dives per permit, but we would rather tell you plainly that this is compiled from published sources and not independently verified with Sabah Parks. We check it against each resort at the time of booking, which is the only number that actually matters for your trip. Fees have moved too, which is why you will also see RM 140 quoted on some pages: that is an older or partial figure and not what you will pay today.

The fee has two components, conservation and scuba diving, charged per person per day. These figures are confirmed with our partner operators as at October 2026. Foreign and international visitors pay RM 100 conservation plus RM 350 diving, totalling RM 450 per person per day. Malaysian citizens pay RM 50 conservation plus RM 250 diving, totalling RM 300 per person per day.

Because operators quote their package price, not the park fee. A Semporna operator day trip to Sipadan commonly runs around RM 1,200 per person, and that figure includes the park fees above plus the boat, guiding, equipment and the operator’s own margin. Both numbers are real. One is what Sabah Parks charges, the other is what a trip costs. When you compare quotes, check which one you are being shown.

Generally no, once a permit has been allocated to you. The resort has committed your name against its daily quota and cannot resell that place at short notice. This is the main reason we ask for permit fees in advance at the time of booking, and the main reason we recommend travel insurance for Sipadan trips.

Three nights, which means a four day three night package, is the standard minimum for a guaranteed Sipadan day. If you want two guaranteed Sipadan days, you generally need five to six nights. Shorter stays can still dive Mabul and Kapalai, which are excellent in their own right, but a Sipadan day is not guaranteed.

Allocations vary dynamically and are not officially published, but the pattern reported across operators is consistent. MV Celebes Explorer, a liveaboard, holds around 16 permits per day, the largest single allocation. Sipadan-Kapalai Dive Resort holds 12, which our partner has confirmed to us directly. Most of the established operators, including Borneo Divers, Seaventures, Scuba Junkie, SMART and Mabul Water Bungalows, hold around 6 each per day. A larger allocation means better odds on your dates, particularly in peak months.

Advanced Open Water or above has been required since October 2022. Sipadan is daylight diving only, with no night dives, and nobody stays overnight on the island: every resort was removed in 2005, so every Sipadan day is a boat trip from Mabul, Kapalai or Semporna.

Yes. Sipadan Island is closed for conservation from 1 to 30 November 2026, with no diving, snorkelling or boat landings permitted. The island reopens on 1 December 2026. We have confirmed these dates with our partner operators. The closure is expected to fall in the same window in 2027 unless Sabah Parks changes it, and we will update this page when the 2027 dates are gazetted. This catches out a lot of people who book Sabah for the year end without checking.

Yes, and this is the part most pages leave out. Mabul and Kapalai remain open throughout the November closure, as does Lankayan in the Sulu Sea. So a November trip to Sabah is still very much worth taking, you simply will not get onto Sipadan itself. If Sipadan is the whole point of the trip, book December onwards.

Through our partner resorts and operators, which hold the allocations. To be straight about it: no travel agency holds Sipadan permits, including us. Sekawan is MOTAC licensed under KPL/LN 10539, which covers arranging your travel; the permit itself always comes from a Sabah Parks registered operator. Our partners include Sipadan-Kapalai Dive Resort, which holds around 12 permits per day, and Sea Horizon in Semporna.

Because the permit is one piece of a trip with several moving parts. We arrange the Kuala Lumpur departure, the flights to Tawau, the land transfer to Semporna, the boat, the resort and the permit as a single booking, and we hold group blocks of eight to ten places months ahead. The resort sells you a room and a boat seat. It cannot sell you the route from Kuala Lumpur, and it will not hold ten places for your dive club.

Four to six months ahead for peak months, roughly March to August, and earlier for groups. Permit allocation is the binding constraint, not room availability, so the resorts with the larger allocations fill their Sipadan days first. If your dates are fixed by a Malaysian public holiday, assume every other diver has the same dates in mind.