Maldives Customs splits its duty-free allowance for arriving travellers into a few named categories. The line between “duty-free” and “declare it” is a precise number: MVR 10,001.
Your own belongings
Items brought for your own use, “clothes / jewelries / watches / pens / portable gadgets / toiletries / books / magazines / newspaper”, are not treated as dutiable goods. Correspondence and documents of no commercial value are also outside the system.
Tobacco
Tobacco has its own line, with an age condition: “All tourists aged 18 years and above arriving from abroad shall be permitted to import, for personal use, either 200 cigarettes, or 25 cigars, or up to 250 grams of tobacco products.” These are alternatives. You get 200 cigarettes, or 25 cigars, or the 250-gram figure, not all three.
Excess tobacco is not confiscated outright. Customs states that “quantities of tobacco exceeding these limits will be retained by Customs for a maximum of 30 days” and that you can “collect these items at the departure terminal of Velana International Airport (VIA) customs counter prior to their departure from Maldives.”
Everything else runs on value
Beyond the named categories, the page uses a value ceiling. Personal items for personal consumption up to MVR 10,000 enter duty-free. The source states this twice: “MVR10,000 or worth less of items imported for personal consumption” and “MVR 10,000 worth of other personal items.” At MVR 10,001 or more, the rule flips: “you must declare the goods and pay the required duty.”
Returning residents
One category applies only to residents, not incoming tourists. Someone “coming back to Maldives after a period of 6 months to 1 year” has a duty-free allowance of MVR 9,000.
Alcohol, cash and duty rates are missing
Of the customs services this site has read across Asia, the Maldives is the only one that publishes a tobacco figure and no alcohol figure beside it. Maldives Customs does not state an allowance for alcohol or address it at all, including the Maldives’ well-known restrictions on alcohol outside resort properties.
The page also has no cash or currency declaration threshold, unlike the customs pages of several neighbouring countries. It gives no duty rate for goods over the MVR 10,001 line, only that duty becomes payable. Confirm both directly with Maldives Customs before you travel with either alcohol or cash.